Tales of Amestris
by CruxisKat
Summary: AU.  The Amestris Military has taken control of an alchemy school.  Roy Mustang is put in charge, and slowly the mysteries of the school begin to unfold around him.  Just who is this mysterious Edward Elric whose name keeps popping up?
1. Chapter 1

Um…yeah. I'm not sure about this one. An idea came to me so I decided to write it down. Erm, I'm not entirely sure what to call it; it's sort of a cross with Tales of Symphonia, and Tales of Phantasia so I sort of incorporated Amestris into it. I hope that I don't give anything away by saying that. I would really love some feedback, I'm not sure whether to continue or not… I also would like suggestions on how I could improve my writing and I'm not sure if it's a good length or a bad length, any comments are appreciated, good or bad. Hope that anyone who reads it likes it…Have fun!

By the way, I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist, or the Tales games, or anything for that matter...so let's never make any mention to me owning them ever again...

**Tales of Amestris**

**Chapter One**

Colonel Roy Mustang walked around the halls of the school for what seemed like the umpteenth time that day. While he did enjoy the fact that as long as he was stationed here he would not need to be faced with the usual difficulties of a soldier, he was however quite bored with being reduced to a walking stamp. All that seemed to be needed of him now was to sign on the dotted line. Paperwork on its own was troublesome to anyone, but it was especially hazardous for Roy Mustang. His Lieutenant saw to that. Every time he would even think of dozing off, or leaving it to do later his subordinate would fire a "warning shot".

Needless to say, there were quite a few bullet holes in the walls of his office.

That poor office, ever since the military took over this school it has seen nothing but hard times. First its previous owner was mercilessly slaughtered in it in the midst of teaching a lesson, and now all the bullet holes Hawkeye had so graciously given it. He should get it repaired.

As he continued his patrol, thankfully he had finished his paperwork hours ago so he had no need to fear Hawkeye coming up behind him with gun in hand; he spotted something he hadn't expected. A little blond boy was walking through the hall, dragging something that appeared to be three times his own size. Roy recognized the child immediately. It was Ed. Strange seeing him here all alone, usually he didn't let his younger brother Al out of his sight.

"What are you doing, Ed?" he asked, picking up his pace so he was next to the boy. Ed looked startled upon seeing him but quickly regained his composure. Roy always found that strange; even though Ed was a child no more than ten, he acted how an adult should act.

"I'm takin' this to the kitchen, it's ingredients for tonight's supper." huffed Ed, returning to his task of dragging the boxlike object down the hall. It couldn't be that heavy, the way the kid was pulling it, it looked like he would be in the kitchen in no time. But just to be polite Colonel Roy Mustang, headmaster of the Elric's School of Alchemy, decided to "offer his assistance".

"Here, I'll carry it for you." said Mustang, reaching down to pick up the box. An odd expression crossed Ed's face and it looked like he was going to protest for a minute, than what Mustang would say was a sinister smirk appeared on the boy's lips and he stopped before even starting to speak. Roy picked up the box easily and admiration flashed in the boy's golden eyes, at least that was what Roy would have liked to have happened, instead he almost pulled his back out trying to lift it. "Shit that's heavy!" That remark caused Ed to gasp in the midst of his laughing.

"Colonel Mustang said a bad word! In front of me! A kid!" he made some disagreeing noises and made a "no" gesture with his index finger, "What a terrible role model you are!" Roy turned a deep shade of crimson. That was another thing Hawkeye always scolded him for, forgetting that he was in the presence of young children who easily picked up and imitated anything an authority figure did.

"Ah-you won't tell Lt. Hawkeye will you?"

"Depends what's in it for me." said the boy shrugging, a wide grin on his face.

"What would you like?" sighed Mustang, when did children become so conniving?

"How about you give me the key to the library."

"Why would a kid like you want that?" asked Roy, not believing his ears, he thought the kid would just want some candy, or to be able to get out of classes for a while. He knew that Ed and his brother were odd, no one knew their last name, they weren't even very sure on their first names, they knew they were Ed and Al, but if those names were shortened forms of anything no one could be sure. Not only that, but they just appeared one day shortly after the military had taken over, and haven't appeared to have aged a day since then.

"It's a secret! But if you don't give me that key I'll tell Miss Hawkeye on you and let her use you as target practice…"

"Fine! Here, take it, but you can't mention this to anyone, got it?" said Roy quickly as he put the silver key into the boy's open hands. Ed quickly put it deep into the pocket of his shorts.

"Deal. Now, I gotta go, Al is waiting for me." After that was said Ed turned and began pulling the large box with one arm, as if to make fun of Roy. Mustang was just about to ask him how he could make it look so easy when something came up from behind and grabbed him.

'_An assassin?!'_ thought Mustang in a panic. He quickly tensed and tried snapping his fingers. _'Shit! My gloves! Why didn't I put them on today?!'_ Ever since becoming headmaster he was beginning to forget to do the basic military things that a soldier such as he should do, such as carry a weapon.

"Hey Roy! Wanna see a picture of my daughter?" came the voice of the assassin. That caused Mustang's heart to stop. It was just Maes Hughes. Prying himself free from his friends grasp Roy let out a sigh of immense relief.

"Don't do that Hughes!! I though you were an enemy! What would have happened if I had my gloves on?! Do you want to die?!" shouted Roy, glaring at his best friend.

"I made sure to check if you had your gloves on before doing that. Yeesh, calm down would ya." Said Maes, rubbing the back of his head and putting the picture of his daughter that he had taken out to show his friend away. "What were you doing anyway? You looked kinda distracted."

"I was talking to Ed."

"You sure do spend a lot of time thinking of that kid. If it were anyone besides me, they would call you a pedophile." said Maes, straightening his glasses and looking down the hall at Ed who was now just barely visible.

"I-it's not like that! I'm just curious about him is all! He and his brother showed up out of nowhere five years ago and still look the same as they did that first day. Aren't you even a little curious about them?"

"Well, yeah. Who wouldn't be? But at least I can have some decency about it. What's that he's carrying by the way?"

"Who knows. He said it had something to do with dinner though. But don't even bother trying to help him with it, even I couldn't lift that thing." said Roy, shaking his head in defeat.

"That just makes me more curious. If it's too heavy for a grown man to lift, how the hell is a child pulling it so easily?" asked Hughes, "I'm going to go investigate. That is my job after all." He then flashed Roy a smile and jogged to catch up to Ed who was just about to enter the cafeteria. Roy quickly followed suit. As they caught up to him he looked up and frowned.

"Still following me? And you brought a friend? Backup as you military dogs say?" snorted Ed, still moving. He got to the doors and began to push them open by leaning on one with his right shoulder and pulling the box with his left arm. At least until the two men got in his way and held the doors wide open for him. "Thanks…"

"No problem. But how about you tell us what you got there?" asked Maes, speaking to Ed in the same manor Roy had heard him speaking to other young children.

"I already told Mustang. It's food for supper." said Ed with a snarl.

"Hey, be polite. It's not 'Mustang' to you, it's 'Colonel Mustang', or 'Headmaster Mustang'. Got it? Now apologize." said Maes, putting a strong hand on the boy's shoulder to prevent him from escaping.

"Argh! Sorry _Colonel Mustang_!" growled Ed through clenched teeth. "I have to get this to Al or else there won't be dinner tonight! So _please_ get out of my way!"

"Alright, go ahead. And make sure you tell your brother that we appreciate all the work that he does around here; we appreciate both of you cooking for us everyday. If we didn't have you two we would all be stuck eating military rations." Replied Hughes, "But perhaps you and your brother should eat more, it seems as though you two haven't grown at all since you came here."

That got Ed to freeze in his tracks. He visibly stiffened and if Roy was in front of him he probably would have seen the boy's eyes go as wide as saucers. An awkward silence fell upon them and then, "I'll tell him." Ed then began to move once more toward the kitchen.

Roy and Maes watched him as he and his cargo disappeared behind the steel counter.

"I hope they don't spit in our food." said Roy, letting his shoulders fall.

"Me too. But even though we didn't get any direct answers, we did get one. He knows they haven't aged."

"Now what should we do? For all we know it could just be some sort of disease that stunts their growth." asked Roy looking to his oldest friend for guidance. Roy wasn't very good at investigating, but he knew that Hughes was.

"I'll look into it, but I've never heard of a disease that altogether stops growth. This is just bizarre." Muttered Maes, "But look at the time, I have to go and get Elysia and get her ready for dinner. See you later Roy, and maybe you should rethink not wearing your gloves. Who knows, next time it could really be an assassin."

"Yeah, I'll remember to put them on from now on. I'll see you at dinner." Said Roy, he gave a slight wave as Hughes left the cafeteria and went toward the dorms.

Now what was he going to do until dinner? He still had an hour. 'Might as well go get my gloves.' He thought and started walking in the direction of his office. He was both glad and a little disappointed that the founder of the school, an Edward Elric, had built the Headmaster's office so far from the rest of the dorms. He liked the fact that his office had a sleeping chamber in it, plus a bathroom that no one else in the school could access, and he also liked that his office was at the very heart of the school, that way he didn't have to worry about walking a mile to get everywhere, everywhere was located close to him. Except the dorms. He had heard many stories from the other military members that were at the school, how they would have parties late at night and some very "interesting" things tended to happen on those nights. That was something he missed ever since he came to this school, partying. Or more in particular, the women.

There weren't really any women here. And because of that Roy Mustang's reputation as a womanizer had been ruined. Well, not really ruined, but he sure hadn't gotten any in a long while.

As he reached the door to his office he sighed, maybe that's why he was sent here, to keep him away from the ladies. He opened the door with his key and walked inside. Turning on the lights he gave the room a quick glance, no gloves in here, just his desk, the bullet holes that showed what a slacker he was, and the hundreds of old books and trinkets left on the shelves from the previous Headmaster. Roy didn't have the heart to take them down. They did belong to the original founder after all, and he wasn't so arrogant to think that he did a better job than the old man who had spent over fifty years of his life teaching and running this school.

He went in to the next room, his private chambers. When he first arrived and was assigned here that was what had shocked him the most. The bedroom was splendid. The bed was a huge four-poster monstrosity. He thought that never in his life would he sleep in a room this luxurious. Covering all the walls were bookshelves that reached the ceiling. Whoever this guy was he most certainly must have loved books. Roy looked around and saw his gloves resting on the small nightstand that was on the right side of his bed, the same place he left them last night.

He picked up the coarse gloves and put them on his hands. Now what should he do before dinner? He began scanning the shelves close to his bed, he loved doing this. He always found something new. He saw something white sticking out from between two large tomes. He pulled it out, and upon turning it over he realized it was a photo.

The photo was of the most beautiful person that Roy had ever seen. The person, a boy, had loose long blond hair that fell to just above the middle of his back. He had long bangs that fell to both sides of his face, and brilliant golden eyes that sparkled from laughter. He had a huge grin on his face and was holding a ring up to the camera. He appeared to be around sixteen years old. Roy was shocked; this was undoubtedly the most wonderful person he had ever seen. Even though this was only a photo, he knew he was in love. He wanted to meet this person, but upon closer examination of the photo Roy realized that it was very old. So old in fact that it was falling apart, but it was odd, if it was really as old as it looked, shouldn't it be black and white? Or not exist at all?

He was snapped out of his thoughts by the ringing of a bell. It was the mealtime bell that Ed and Al had installed all throughout the entire school. He tucked the photo in his pocket and began making his way toward the cafeteria again. Maybe he could show Hughes the picture he found instead of having photos of Elysia shoved in his face all night.

He saw many of the children who lived and learned here at the school on his trip to the cafeteria. Many of them smiled and gave him little salutes as he walked; he smiled and nodded in response. He entered the cafeteria and walked up to the counter.

"Hungry?" came a quiet voice from behind the counter. It was the younger brother Al who was dishing out the food this time. He handed Roy a tray with a plate with two large greenish rectangles side by side. There was also a glass of water on the side. "There you go, enjoy Colonel!"

"Thank you very much Al. I most certainly will enjoy it." Said Roy, he tried to peek in the back to get a glance of Ed, but to no avail. He then made his way toward the table where Hughes was waiting.

"Well, do you want to see a picture of my daughter?" asked Maes, a goofy, evil smile on his face. Roy sat down and began to nibble at his Razlish and drink his water in silence. This was some of the strangest food Roy had ever eaten, he had never even heard of it until he had been assigned here, he was sure that was the case with the rest of the military personnel as well. It tasted alright, but no one was really sure if it was meat or vegetable, or a combination of the two. He had been uncertain about eating it at first, but he had gotten used to it. After finishing eating one of the "loafs" he pulled out the picture of the blond boy he found.

"What do you make of this?" he asked, handing the photo to Hughes.

"Hmm…. Definitely not as cute as Elysia, or my wife. But cute nonetheless, I didn't know you were in to that sort of thing though… The great Roy Mustang, Womanizer, in love with a young boy?"

"I know it sounds bad, but it's not like that. I mean, how can it be? I've never met the guy before. I was wondering how old you would say the photo is."

"Interesting, its condition suggest that's it quite old, but they only recently came out with colored photos, if it was as old as it looks it should at least be in black and white." said Maes, looking over the photo from all angles.

"I thought that too. It's odd isn't it? I found it in the bookshelf in my room, so it has to be from the previous owner of the room."

"Maybe it's him? When he was a teenager perhaps? The man did have blond hair after all." suggested Maes as he gave the photo back to Roy, "But you know what I find odd, the person in the photo really reminds me of Ed, only older."

Roy snapped to attention at that. He knew he recognized something about that figure. He gave the photo a quick look over, yes; it definitely looked like him, no mistake about that. He looked up from the photo and saw Ed only a table away from them. He and his brother were asking about how everyone liked the meal, as usual. "I'll ask him when he gets over here."

"Do you think he will answer?" asked Hughes.

"Only one way to find out." said Roy, taking a deep breath to try to calm himself as Ed approached their table, "Hey, Ed, could you tell me what you think of this picture?"

"It better not be a picture of the Lt. Colonel's daughter, I see enough of her in class." said Ed through clenched teeth, but he reached out and took the photo nevertheless. He stared at it wide eyed for several moments before speaking again, "Where did you get this?" Was Roy mistaken, or did his voice shake as he said that?

"I found it in my room. It's quite odd don't you think? It looks so old, yet it is in color. The person in that photo also bears quite the resemblance to you, don't you think?" asked Roy, speaking not as one would to a child, but to someone of equal status. Ed visibly gulped at that.

"Well, if you found it in your room, maybe it belongs to the Headmaster?" said Ed, handing the photo back to Roy.

"I am the Headmaster." stated Roy calmly.

"Not to me you aren't." with that being said Ed walked away, back to the kitchen without sparing a single glance to anyone as he left. Roy noticed Al give them a strange look, if he didn't know the boy any better he would have called it a glare. Al then left and headed back to the kitchen without stopping at any other table to see what they thought of the meal.

"Great, now I pissed off both those boys." sighed Roy in annoyance.

"Well, we did find out some interesting stuff."

"Yeah, they don't think of me as the Headmaster."

"Well, I'm going to go and do some more research. I know that I've seen that boy somewhere before, and I'm going to find out where. I'll see you tomorrow." With that Maes got up and left the table, taking his tray with him to the counter to give back to Al. Roy waited until Maes had left the room and then gave his tray to Al too, only this time he didn't get any small talk from the brother.

He left the cafeteria and began to make his way outside to the gardens. He needed some cool night air to help him think. He walked over to his favorite chair beneath a cherry tree, it was getting close to winter now and almost all the leaves had fallen off the tree. He looked up the full moon and quickly became lost in thought.

He was startled out of his thoughts by the howl of a wolf. He had heard them before during his stay here, but it always startled him to hear their lonely cries. He got up and stretched, he must have been sitting there for quite awhile, his muscles were sore and his back cracked as he stretched. He wasn't as young as he used to be, he couldn't keep staying up so late.

He began his walk towards his office, quickly going inside the school to escape the cold. As he walked through the dark hallways he spotted something strange about the library. The door was open a crack and a small light was shining inside the room. _'That's odd; don't they lock up after dark?' _He peeked inside the room and what he saw next took his breath away.

It was the blond boy in the old picture he found.


	2. Chapter 2

People actually liked this story. I'm amazed. Thanks for all the reviews, I hope I can get some more for this chapter. Hope you like this chapter too.

**Tales of Amestris**

**Chapter Two**

Obsidian eyes slowly blinked back to life. This was one of the worst mornings Roy Mustang had ever awoken too, the pounding in his head was worse than any hangover he had experienced. Groaning he sat up in his four-poster bed and began rubbing his eyes and the space between. He walked over to his private washroom and downed a couple of painkillers that he had stored there. He gave his face a quick wash and was startled to find that the pounding in his head had not decreased; in fact it had gotten noticeably louder.

That was when he realized it wasn't his head that was pounding; it was someone at the door. He quickly picked up his silver pocket watch and read the time, eleven o'clock. Shit. He overslept. There was no doubt in his mind that outside his office door was a very pissed off Lt. Hawkeye.

"Sir! Wake up! You should have been up and working hours ago!" came the unsurprisingly irritated voice of his First Lieutenant.

"I'm up." said Roy, slowly making his way to the door. He would have gotten dressed but it appeared that he didn't get undressed last night and his uniform looked fairly clean still. That's right last nigh. Just what had happened? He remembered talking to Hughes in the cafeteria, and then going outside. He could vaguely remember walking to his room but-but someone was in the library! The boy from the picture! With new motivation Roy all but ran from his office, that is until Hawkeye fired a bullet about an inch away from his head.

"Where do you think you're going? _ Sir_?" asked Hawkeye, the way she said it made Roy fear for his life if he took one more step down the hall. "You have paperwork to do. Now get doing it before I actually shoot you!"

He knew that Riza would never agree to let him go if he told her about the boy, so Roy let himself be led back into the office. He tried to get the paperwork done as fast as possible, he probably only succeeded in signing his name wrong on more than half of them however. But he finished nonetheless, and after only- TWO HOURS!!

He let out a groan as he let his head fall on the hard wooden desk, now the boy definitely wouldn't be there. It was a stretch thinking he would be there before, but now there was no way he could see that boy. Unless… he needed to figure out how that boy got into the library in the first place. It was always locked up after dark and only he and the librarian had keys.

Wait, he didn't have his key anymore. He gave it to Ed yesterday. Maybe Ed had it stolen from him, or had given it to this strange boy. Or maybe he was the one Roy saw in the library. He did look an awful lot like the person in the picture; maybe Roy had just mistaken Ed for the boy because of the dim lighting. He didn't have a clue anymore. He knew that his questions wouldn't be answered by just sitting here moping.

He got up and handed the finished paperwork to Hawkeye, she gave him a small smile and a salute before leaving. He then began to leave his office as well, he didn't bother locking the door today though, only he and Hawkeye ever came into his office, and he was pretty sure there weren't any thieves here. He walked down the hall, peeking into any classrooms that had their door open even a crack. He didn't have a clue where to find Ed, he knew he should have paid more attention to what the kids in his school were taking, but he still wasn't comfortable with the idea of being a teacher. Hence the reason he wasn't actually teaching anything, unlike many of the other members of the military who were assigned to the school with him.

As he turned a corner so he could get to the library he spotted Maes Hughes walking towards him with a rather old looking book in his hand.

"Hey, Roy! Just the guy I wanted to see." said Maes as he reached Mustang, "I did some investigating, and you will never believe what I found. Look at this." saying that he opened the dusty book and shoved it under Roy's nose. Roy grabbed the book and held it so that he could see what was in it; it was a volume listing influential military personnel. This one contained famous State Alchemists; Roy remembered reading it back when he first entered military service.

The page Hughes had turned to had the profile of one of the most famous Alchemist in the world. The Fullmetal Alchemist. He was one of Roy's favorites when he was a kid. Since the Fullmetal Alchemist was the youngest person to ever pass the National Exam he had been one of the reasons that Roy had even considered taking the exam. When he was younger he had tried to take the exam earlier than most people did, hoping that he too could be like the great Fullmetal Alchemist, but the kid hadn't been called a prodigy for nothing.

"Look at the picture in the bottom left-hand corner." said Maes, standing beside Roy and pointing to the relatively small, black and white picture in the corner. Roy looked at it and was shocked; it matched the picture he had found almost perfectly. Only this one was a standard military profile picture. Roy looked at his friend with wide eyes.

"How?"

"That picture is over four hundred years old, taken when he first joined the military. I can't tell exactly how old the one you found is, but the main thing is the person in them is the same. That means that the founder of this school must have had some connection to the Fullmetal Alchemist."

"But how can that be? They lived four hundred years apart! And not only that, I saw this boy last night!"

"What?! Where?" asked Hughes, his eyes becoming almost as wide as Roy's.

"I saw him in the library, with a big stack of books."

"What happened?"

"I don't know, I can't remember anything after that. I just woke up with an aching head, and no recollection of how I got back to my room."

"That's odd, in order to get into the library after hours he would need a key, but the only ones with keys to that place are you and Sheska. How could he get a key?" questioned Maes, one hand stroking his short black beard.

"Well… I don't have my key anymore…" said Roy, blushing faintly.

"What?! Was it stolen?"

"No, I gave it to Ed so he wouldn't tell Hawkeye I swore in front of him."

"You did what?!" came the annoyed shout of the Lt. Colonel. This outburst caused several of the teachers nearby who had their doors open to slam them shut. "This is interesting" continued Hughes in a hushed voice, "I was wondering how all this would tie back to that kid. I say we go and properly interrogate him."

"Like a criminal?"

"Well, let's not take it that far, but I did some research on the Fullmetal Alchemist. Apparently he is still in the military. They haven't listed him as dead or anything, in fact they still fund him."

"What?! But he lived and probably died four hundred years ago!"

"Exactly. That's what's so strange about it. The location they send the funding to is strange as well."

"Where do they send it?" asked Roy, becoming nervous by how serious his usually happy friend was being.

"They send it here, to this school."

"WHAT?!"

"Yeah, I suspect that that Ed kid may know something about this. The Fullmetal Alchemist after all did research the Philosopher's Stone, which as everyone knows has something to do with immortality. Maybe he found it."

"Alright, let's suppose that somehow this Ed is in fact the Fullmetal Alchemist. Why do you think he would tell anything to me? Shouldn't he talk to his commanding officer and not me?" asked Roy, he was beginning to pace now, and he was sure his hands were shaking. They felt all sweaty inside his gloves.

"That's another interesting thing. Turns out that when you became Colonel and replace Fenenze you became the Fullmetal Alchemist's commanding officer. Isn't that some amazing luck?" said Hughes, shrugging his shoulders.

"But, how, why? These can't all be coincidences can they?"

"I don't think so. I think the military stationed you here because they knew the Fullmetal Alchemist was here, maybe to put him under a more watchful eye? He is wanted after all."

"That's another thing, why would they continue to fund a wanted man? If they knew where he was why not arrest him?"

"Who knows? Only the military higher ups know that, and I don't think that their about to share any of their secrets with us. We better just stick to what we have and get that kid to talk. He should be in Major Armstrong's physical education class right now, let's go find him." said Hughes, eyes glinting dangerously.

Both men began to quickly walk through the school towards the courtyard that Armstrong had turned into a P.E. classroom. This was probably going to be one of the last classes taught outside this year, winter was fast approaching so they would soon have to find another area to train.

When they arrived at the courtyard Roy quickly scanned the students for Ed. Nope, not here. Even Al, who was very respectful of the rules, was missing. Maes had already walked up to Armstrong and had asked where they were.

"I'm sorry; the two boys didn't show up at all today. I have no clue as to where they may be." said Armstrong, looking down at them from his towering height.

"Thanks anyway Major, you can return to teaching."

"Did those boys do anything wrong? They were model students, I couldn't possibly think that they have the capacity to do misdeeds." asked Armstrong looking concerned for the safety and welfare of his top students.

"As far as we know they haven't done anything wrong, we just wanted to have a word with Ed." said Roy.

"I see, well, I wish you luck in finding them." After that was said Roy and Maes left the courtyard quietly.

"Do you have any idea where they could be now?" asked Roy.

"Nope, with my rank the only info I have available is what classes they have. We need someone of _higher rank_ to be able to find which room they live in."

"I get it. I should have that information in my office." said Roy with a smirk. They walked purposefully towards Roy's office but a noise from inside it caused them to hesitate when they got there. Voices.

"I can't believe he left the door unlocked. What is he, an idiot? But it does make our job a lot easier than having to wait for that bastard to fall asleep." It was Ed's voice, no doubt about it. But why was he in Roy's office?

"I agree that leaving the door unlocked was a stupid mistake, but you shouldn't call him a-a you-know-what!" That was unmistakably Al. Roy leaned closer and slowly opened the door a crack so he could see what was going on inside. Ed and Al were going through the books on his shelves and pulling slips of paper, or at times even whole books off the shelves and putting them into a pile.

"You would think that after living as long as we have you would be comfortable saying those words, you're not a kid anymore Alphonse!" he heard Ed chuckle after saying that, "Wait, what's that? There's someone at the door!" Roy decided that was as good a time as any to enter, Hughes followed close behind him and silently closed the door. "You!! What are you doing here?!"

"This is my office isn't it?" said Roy, trying his best to keep the smirk on his face, "I should be the one asking you boys what you're doing here, not the other way around."

Ed growled at that, and Al looked nervous. "Brother, what should we do? We can't hurt them, but we can't tell them either can we?" Al looked like he was about to cry.

"We knew we were going to be found out at one point in time… but by this lazy bastard? I wish it was someone else…maybe that Winry girl, she was nice to us." muttered Ed. Roy was surprised at hearing such language from the boy; there was definitely something off with him.

"How about you explain things from the beginning? Depending on your story we may have to turn you in to the military police." came Hughes' calm voice. How could he be so calm? Roy felt like he was shaking like a leaf in a tornado.

"We can't."

"What do you mean you can't?" asked Hughes.

"If we tell, we could put this whole school in danger!" shouted Ed.

"Well, then just answer a few of our questions, alright?"

The boys exchanged a glance, "We'll try." They said in unison.

"Alright." Said Mustang as he pulled the picture of the blond boy from his pocket, "who is this?"

"That's Ed" said Al, pointing at his brother.

"Ok, now how about this one?" asked Hughes, taking the old book that Roy had forgotten he was carrying and flipping to the picture of the Fullmetal Alchemist.

"That's Ed too." Came Al's soft reply, "or as was called then, the Fullmetal Alchemist."

"How can you be both? You're just a kid! And these pictures were taken a long time ago, before you were born!" shouted Roy. For some reason his eyes were drawn to the pile of paper and books that the boys had pulled down from his bookshelves. The scraps of paper were actually old photographs. He rushed over to them and picked them up to inspect them. There were more pictures of Ed as a teenager; he could also see Al in many of them, only he was older too. "Why, why are all these pictures here?"

"Well, you see…we didn't have an opportunity to move them since the military took over…" murmured Al.

"But why? If they were in this room then they should be the Headmaster's shouldn't they? Why would the Headmaster have pictures of you two?" asked Maes.

Another glance was shared between the brothers, "Because I'm the Headmaster." stated Ed. Silence descended upon the room.

"What?" sputtered Roy, successfully breaking the silence.

"I, Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist, am the Headmaster of the Elric's School of Alchemy." said Ed, standing up straight and pointing to himself with his right thumb.

"You-You're Edward Elric? But that can't be! He died when the military took over! His grave is located just outside the school, how can this possibly be?" asked Maes, slamming his fist down on Roy's desk, making Al jump a little. Roy was kind of glad the desk was separating Ed and Al from him and Maes, if it wasn't there Maes probably would have resorted to shaking one of the boys like a doll.

"Dig it up." Said Ed, "I guaranty you won't find anything inside."

The way he said it caused Roy to shudder. He was so calm about it, as if digging up a grave was an everyday occurrence, as if he didn't care at all about morals or ethics. "Do you have the Philosopher's Stone? Is that your excuse for living so long and being so young?"

"No, we don't have the Philosopher's Stone. We have something else." said Al, "The Philosopher's Stone belongs to the "demons" or Homunculi. What we have belongs to us angels."

"Angels?" gasped Roy in disbelief.

"Great! Look what you did now! You told what we were! Good job Al." huffed Ed, crossing his arms and looking away from his brother in disappointment.

"Oops. Sorry big brother. I didn't mean to let it slip." said Al nervously.

"Well, whatever. We told all we can tell you, so if you don't mind, get the hell out of my office!" shouted Ed, pointing at the door.

"You can't expect us to leave now can you? And besides, this is _my _office!" said Roy defiantly.

"All you are is an Acting Headmaster. You have no real control over anything that happens in this school, quit fooling yourself. Do you think those papers you sign all day actually mean or do anything? This school is entirely self-sufficient according to the outside world. No one gets those papers you sign." said Ed sinisterly. "You are only here for show, not important for anything."

"So you mean that all this time, all the papers I've been signing mean nothing?" growled Roy in fury. He hated doing paperwork above all else, and now these kids are saying that that paperwork was a joke?

"You bet. Perfect way to keep you busy, since it takes you so long to get it done!" laughed Ed. Roy was beginning to get annoyed be that, this kid seemed to know so much more than he did and yet he wouldn't tell Roy anything. It was driving him crazy.

"Big brother, it's almost supper time. We better hurry and make it, we wouldn't want any of the humans starving." said Al, tapping his brother on the shoulder to get his attention.

"Ah- right. Well, you better let us through; we are after all the only people in this whole school who know how to properly make Razlish. So get outta the way unless you want to starve! We can talk another day, Al and I still got business here, so we ain't gonna leave just yet." said Ed loudly. He then began to force his way through Roy and Maes, little brother following close behind him.

"Wait, before you go, could you tell us what happened last night, when Roy saw you in the library?" asked Hughes hesitantly.

"He remembers that huh? Al gave him a whap upside the head and we carried him back to his room." said Ed shrugging nonchalantly.

"But the door to my room was locked how did you get in?"

"We have a key." stated Al.

That being said the two boys ran away towards the cafeteria without a backward glance at the two grown men they had left speechless in the office doorway.

"I have absolutely no privacy, do I?" said Mustang, hanging his head in defeat.

"Not in the least." agreed Hughes. "Well, I better get going, there's a lot for me to think about, and you better clean up this office before Hawkeye sees it." As he said that he motioned to the pile of papers and books the brothers who had taken off his shelves that seemed to be taking over his entire desk.

"Yeah, I better. I wonder if I should tell her about the paperwork. All these years she's been forcing me to do something that is completely pointless."

"I doubt she would believe you. She would just think you are making up stuff to get out of work."

"You're right." Said Roy sadly, "see you at dinner Maes. I didn't notice until now how hungry I am. I missed both breakfast and lunch today."

"So I guess those kids were right about people starving, huh?" asked Maes, snickering at his best friend's expense.

"Just get out of here!" shouted Roy, picking up a paperweight from his desk and pretending to throw it at his friend as he ducked out the door.


	3. Chapter 3

Third chapter. Thanks again for the reviews, I would have written this sooner but I had an English paper to write. Hope you all enjoy this, more than Mustang at least.

**Tales of Amestris**

**Chapter Three**

Roy Mustang rolled over in his large four-poster bed so he was facing away from his office door. He was having a heck of a time sleeping tonight. But he supposed it was only natural, he learned a lot of odd things today that made his head spin. A person who is still alive despite the fact of being born four hundred years ago, and still looks like a child! He didn't really understand all that occurred today, but he was attributing that to shock of having found out that his favorite student really hated him.

He had always thought highly of Ed, but he didn't have a clue why. Maybe it was because he was one of the few students whose name Roy could remember. Whatever it was, Roy had grown quite attached to the boy. Roy would always ask how his classes were going and how he was doing whenever he saw him, but lately he was seeing less and less of the boy. Before he would at least see the boy at dinner, but now thanks to his and Hughes' investigation they wouldn't even see him then.

Well, it was only the past two nights that they hadn't been asked their opinion about the meal. Yesterday it was because they had talked to him about something else and today they had really pissed him and his brother off with their questions. It was understandable that the two hadn't wanted to talk to them today.

A frustrated look crossed Roy's handsome face as he shifted under his blankets and turned around to face the door. Just as he went to fluff his pillow again he heard something from inside his office. It sounded like someone had unlocked the door. Roy slowly began to get up, grabbing his gloves off the bedside table as he rose. He slowly made his way to the door, avoiding the pile of books and papers on the floor that he had moved there from his desk earlier instead of sorting them out and putting them back on the shelves. He opened the door a crack, trying to see just who had entered his office at such a late hour. The door hadn't been forced; obviously the intruder had a key. Roy was trying his best to suppress images of an assassin sneaking in to slit his throat.

But as he looked in he couldn't make out anything. It was just too dark, there wasn't even a dark shape to show that there was actually someone there and he wasn't just hearing things. He opened the door a bit more to try to get a better look when suddenly he was blinded by an intense light.

"Oh, it's just him." came the voice of the intruder, which sounded strangely familiar, "thought he would have been asleep by now."

Ed! That was the voice! He pulled his hands away from his eyes and tried to get a look at the speaker. The light that had blinded him was now pointed at the ceiling, revealing a very sinister looking Ed holding the light source. Roy walked over to them slowly, spots still dancing in front of his eyes. He wished he wasn't wearing his baby blue pajamas.

"What are you kids doing here?"

"Kids?" repeated Ed with narrow eyes.

"Sorry to wake you Colonel, we thought you were asleep." mumbled Al in an apology.

"That doesn't answer my question. Just what are you doing in my office so late at night? Shouldn't you be sleeping?" asked Roy, looking down at the small boys and trying to keep the light Ed was pointing at him out of his eyes.

"Ed! Quit it!" said Al, slapping Ed lightly on the hand to prevent him from shining the light in Roy's eyes. "We just had to prepare the food and do some other things to keep the school running. The only way to access our labs is through this office."

"And besides, it's _my_ office." stated Ed.

"Oh? You have labs here? Could I see?"

"…Fine. Since you are sort of in charge here, we might as well show you, 'cause if we didn't you probably would just start snooping around with that Hughes guy." Grumbled Ed, "Al, flip the switch!"

"Roger!" said Al as he pushed a button on the bookshelf behind Roy's desk that Roy hadn't noticed, probably because it was hidden behind a tiny wooden figurine of an angel. Once the button was pushed the shelf seemed to slide back and a staircase was revealed where the bookshelf had been by Ed's flashlight. Roy assumed it was a flashlight, though it did appear smaller and much more advanced than any Roy had seen.

The passageway was fairly wide; it looked like three fully grown people could walk down it side by side with no problems. It was a fairly steep staircase; Roy had no idea of how far down it went. Just as he was contemplating how it had got there the two blond boys started descending. Roy took a few quick steps to catch up, while trying his best to be careful not to fall on this new staircase.

"You're actually coming? I'm impressed. I thought you would have chickened out." said Ed with a smirk. Roy suppressed a shiver as they continued down the stairs, it was getting colder, and the stone stairs felt like ice to his bare feet.

"So you are really the Fullmetal Alchemist?" asked Roy, crossing his arms to prevent all his heat to be leached away by the cold stone that surrounded them.

"How many times do I have to say 'yes' before it actually sinks in?" sneered Ed, giving Roy a look that said that he thought Roy was mentally handicapped.

"Alright, it's just a bit hard to believe is all…" mumbled Roy, "but if you're really him, why do you look like that?"

"What do you want me to look like?!" sputtered Ed, obviously annoyed at Roy, his left eye was twitching slightly.

"Well, maybe you should look a little like the alchemist in question…" as he said that Ed spread his arms wide and it looked like the ground beneath him started glowing. It was a fairly large column of white light, and it looked like within it there were floating feathers? They appeared to be made of intense light. It actually looked like the kid had risen off the ground a few inches, after a few seconds the light became too severe for Roy to keep his dark eyes open and he was forced to close them. When he opened them again the teen from the photos was staring back at him.

He was wearing a large red coat with a black jacket underneath, black pants, and big black boats with red grips on the bottom. He also had on white gloves that covered his hands. His long blond hair was tied in a loose braid and he had blond bangs that fell to both sides of his face. He looked just like the picture Maes had shown him, only in color.

"Done drooling?" said the teen with a smirk. Roy quickly snapping his jaw shut.

"Y-you?! B-but how?!" gasped Roy, trying, and failing miserably, to act composed.

"Should I change too brother?" asked Al, looking up at the teen.

"Sure, why not?" said the teen, shrugging his shoulders. The small flashlight he was holding was still pointed to the floor in front of him.

The bright light started again, only this time it was under Al's feet. We the lighted died down and Roy uncovered his eyes another teen was standing in front of him. Only this one had darker blond hair and grey eyes instead of gold. His hair was fairly long too, only it was tied back in a low ponytail. He was wearing a long-sleeved tan jacket that had a dark blue vest overtop of it. The vest had a few gold lines and half circles embroidered into it and it and his jacket ended at his waist. He has also wearing tan pants with a blue stripe, similar to the blue on his vest, at the cuffs and tan shoes that looked fairly sturdy, like they were meant for kicking people. He also had fairly thick gauntlets on; he was obviously proficient at hand to hand combat.

"Is that better? Going to stop calling us 'kids' now?" sneered the Fullmetal Alchemist. Without waiting for an answer he then began to walk down the tunnel as if nothing had happened. The other teen followed after him, leaving Roy in the dark for a moment before he ran to catch up with them.

"So you two, you are the same boys that were in my room earlier? You're Ed and Al?" As Roy said that he pointed a questioning finger at the two.

"Yes, I'm Edward, and he's my little brother Alphonse. You can call us 'Ed' and 'Al' if you want."

"Alright, and you're both angels?" asked Roy, still staring at the two with wide eyes.

"That's what some call us." sighed Ed, "But I think the term 'Created Beings' is better."

"Created Beings? Like a homunculus?"

"NO!!" shouted the two teens at once, both of them glaring up at Roy.

"We are Created _Beings_, not artificial humans! There's nothing human about us!" spat Ed who was now glaring at the wall and not Roy, much to Roy's relief. He hated being the one on the receiving end of that death glare.

"Nothing human about you? What do you mean?"

"He means that we aren't like humans. We don't need to eat, or sleep, or breathe, or feel. And we won't die and we don't grow old. We are in essence, perfect." said Alphonse slowly.

"Perfect?" mumbled Roy, "Wow. That sounds amazing." He was now staring at the boys with even wider eyes, if that was possible. The two just gave him an odd look and began to walk down the stairs at a faster pace. Roy hurried after them and soon they found themselves in a large, bright room.

There seemed to be a line of small lights along the tops of the walls, it looked like they were built right into the walls because nothing stuck out. Roy didn't know what they were, they weren't torches, and they couldn't be lamps, he wanted to get a closer look, but he couldn't reach that high and even if he could the light was so bright that he wouldn't be able to see how it was emitted. As he stood there wondering what made the room so bright without flickering, he realized that he was alone, the teens had abandoned him.

He quickly looked around the room, trying to see where they could have gone. The part of the room he was standing in was quite empty, but he could see what looked like fields in the distance. He had no idea how large this room was, but it was obviously a lot bigger than his office, it looked like it went on for miles. He slowly began to make his way through the fields, he had been right, they were fields. They had many plants growing in them, potatoes, onions, carrots, corn, and many others, enough to feed an army for years! Maybe this was some of the stuff that went into that Razlish dish the boys made.

He was getting tired of walking, he was a bit warmer down here, maybe because of the lights, but he was still freezing. His feet felt like they were numb. He had entered a thicker section and now he couldn't really see where he was going or where he had come from. He was getting worried that he was going to be stuck down here for the rest of his life. Just as he thought that he turned a corner and was out in the open.

He saw the two brothers facing some giant machine. It had large glowing glass screens (windows?) on it, and a large panel with hundreds of buttons on it, like a typewriter. He stared at it in awe as strange symbols appeared and disappeared on it. He was content to just stand there with his jaw hanging open watching it, until a strange noise from the area beside the machine startled him. There was a wall of glass, and what he saw behind that shocked the living daylights out of him.

There were people. Dead people. They were lying down and being dragged on this moving metal counter toward the back of the machine. Roy rushed over to see where they came from and where they were going. There was a long line of them, with no end in sight, he looked toward the back of the machine but couldn't see anything. He could hear strange noises however coming from the inside of the machine. He rushed over to the other side to see if the bodies came out.

They didn't. Blocks of light green Razlish came out.

Realization dawned on Mustang faster than anything had before. And because of it Mustang vomited on the cold stone ground. Razlish was made out of the bodies of humans. And he and everyone in this school had been eating it unknowingly. He choked and gagged some more, but now the only thing that would come up was his stomach acid. He spat onto the floor to try to get rid of the disgusting taste in his mouth and shakily stood up. He rushed passed the two teens who were staring at him as if he had three heads toward the line of bodies. He looked at them, and he realized that he recognized some of them. These people were military personnel.

Not only were these two "angels" feeding them people, they were feeding them their comrades. Roy was horrified. He had to get this madness to stop. He turned to the two teens who were watching him with scrutinizing eyes.

"WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!" shouted Roy, a little more high-pitched then he had intended. The boys just blinked at that before Ed spoke up.

"This is where we make the food for the school."

"OUT OF PEOPLE?!"

"Yes. It's a good resource. One human corpse can make thirty blocks of Razlish which can feed thirty children or fifteen adults. And there is no end to human corpses in this militaristic country, regardless of all the steps taken to prevent war from breaking out here. It is an excellent food source." said Edward with a large smile. That just made Mustang want to throw up even more.

"Normally a human body could feed about sixty adults, but we have developed a way to extract the nutrients and make it so it doesn't taste like you're eating human flesh. Because of this process the people eating the Razlish are healthier than the people just eating straight human meat." added Alphonse, "It also reduces the chances of the consumer developing some sort of mental disease."

The room was spinning. Mustang felt his feet giving way beneath him; he fell to his knees with a thud. That would hurt tomorrow, right now it seemed like his whole body had gone numb. How could these _people_ act so calm about it? It was like they didn't care, like they didn't realize what they were doing. But when he listened to what they actually said he knew that wasn't the case. They had put a lot of thought into it, it sounded like they had been doing this for a long time.

"…Why?" gasped Roy, he felt warm tears fall from his eyes, he forced his eyes shut, not wanting to show these two _monsters_ that he was crying.

"Because I was ordered to." said Ed calmly, he knelt down in front of Roy and put a timid hand on his shoulder. "If I had refused that order my position as a Seraphim would be reconsidered. I had to follow orders. Just be grateful that we altered it, if we had just stuck to the order you would all be eating human steaks."

Roy looked up into Ed's golden eyes through his own bleary black ones. He blinked a few times to try to get rid of the tears that remained there. Ed was a soldier too. He was given orders that were unsettling, just like Roy had been given during the Ishbal war. Only there Roy had been give orders to kill and not to feed the dead bodies of his men to his living troops.

"We have been looking for a renewable food source for you humans since Derris-Kharlan first came to this planet. And because one of the four Seraphim suggested that we feed humans to each other we had no choice but to obey. We really had no choice!" pleaded Al, Roy looked at him, he looked miserable. Those two didn't want to do this; they were being used by their higher-ups.

Roy slowly stood up, leaning heavily on Ed to support himself. He was surprised that the teen let him; he thought the kid hated him.

"Do angels eat other angels?" asked Roy weakly.

"No, angels don't eat. Remember? Al told you before."

"Why don't angels eat?" wondered Roy aloud.

"Gluttony is a sin. Angels cannot sin." stated Al solemnly.

"But isn't gluttony overeating? So isn't it ok if you just eat normal portions?"

"Angels are very strict. We can't eat period so there is no possibility of us 'overeating'. Just like we cannot sleep so sloth isn't an option." said Ed quietly.

"We can sort of eat, we just can't eat very much, and even if we do eat we don't taste anything. Everything tastes the same, like cardboard." Commented Al as he pushed some buttons on the machine, causing the endless line of corpses to stop coming from wherever they came from. "But it's late; the Colonel needs rest since he is a human. Let's get him back up to the surface before we have to carry him up all those stairs."

Roy then found himself being half dragged up the stairs toward his office. As they neared the top Ed stopped and turned to him.

"You can't tell anyone about what you saw here ok? Not even that Hughes guy. This is our little secret; you should be honored to be a part of it. Got it? If you tell, you will become one of the ingredients."

Roy gasped for breath, he had been expecting them to try to get him not to tell anyone about it, but he didn't think they would threaten him by saying he would be used as an ingredient. As he looked into Ed's eyes he realized that the boy wouldn't hesitate to use him as food materials. He gulped and nodded slowly to Ed.

"Good!" chirped both the boys. They then continued their ascent in silence and darkness. Roy hadn't realized just how dark the staircase was before, he was thankful for the little light that Ed was providing with the flashlight. They suddenly stopped when they got to a wall. Roy didn't remember seeing a wall on the path before. The flashlight pointed to something on the wall to Roy's right and he saw Alphonse touch that something. Then he heard a small noise and saw that the wall in front of them had began to move, and now instead of a wall was a door to Roy's office.

Ed walked Roy over to his bed and gently pushed him down onto it, as if Roy was made out of glass or very fragile crystal. Ed then brought the blankets up so they covered Roy, all the way up to his chin. Ed then turned the light out. Now Roy couldn't see him or his brother.

"Can you sleep? Or do you need some help?" asked Ed through the darkness. Roy could feel eyes watching him in the darkness and he shivered slightly under the thick blankets, he didn't think he would be able to sleep tonight at all. "Al, you better help him along."

"Ok." said Alphonse cheerfully. Roy had no idea how these two could be so happy even though they knew they were doing something wrong. And just what did Ed mean by 'help him along'? "Sleep." came a commanding voice. He could tell it was Al, but he had never heard the boy use such a tone before.

Why was he feeling so tired all of the sudden? It felt like his limbs were made of lead, his eyes were struggling to stay open. He lasted a good five seconds before the overwhelming urge to sleep became too powerful for him.


	4. Chapter 4

**Oooooo, long chapter. Hope it's ok. It took me a while to write, for some reason it just didn't want to start. Um… good job those of you who saw the Soylent Green references. I was unsure if anyone would know that, good job! I didn't want to give it away, so I named it something else.**

**And I don't own Soylent Green. Just so you know.**

**Anyway, I hope you like this chapter. Reviews are welcome; I really appreciate all the ones I got. Thank you all so much! Please continue reviewing so I can know that this isn't falling on deaf ears. Any suggestions, or even criticisms, are welcome. Hopefully I have made any stupid mistakes like misspelling words or the like.**

**Enjoy!**

**Tales of Amestris**

**Chapter Four**

Roy had spent an entire week avoiding both the Elric brothers and the cafeteria. It wasn't easy; he only managed to accomplish it by assigning Hawkeye to overlook the way the other teachers were dealing with the students and to make reports on their teaching methods. He was actually surprised she had agreed to it, but that didn't matter now, he knew that once she was done she would probably shoot him for real. He hadn't done any paperwork since that night the brothers told him it was a waste of time. He locked himself up in his office for days, not eating and hardly sleeping.

He was positive that he looked like crap. He had pretty much given up hygiene; he hadn't shaved or showered in ages. He was amazed that he actually managed to pull off not talking to anyone for the past week; he had thought that he wouldn't be able to have a normal conversation with anyone after that night in fear of accidentally letting it slip. If he didn't speak to anyone then he couldn't possibly reveal the secret, right?

It's not like anyone noticed his absence the past week. He didn't teach any classes, the only thing he was needed for was signing paperwork, and since that was all just a joke he wasn't needed at all really. So much for his big promotion.

The higher-ups called it a promotion, coming to this school and running it as Headmaster, but he never thought of it as such. They just moved him here to keep him away from Central, they saw the ambition in his eyes and did all they could to quash it. But maybe that wasn't the entire reason. He had after all, "inherited" authority over the Fullmetal Alchemist, maybe they sent him here to bring the kid back to the military?

Whatever the reason, it didn't change the fact that he was now a mere figurehead and the real one in charge was Edward. Edward…why did such a small kid cause him so much grief? Did the kid really hate him? He sure acted like he hated Roy, but the way he carried him up the stairs the other day made him wonder. The kid was so gentle with him then and yet still so strong, it was as if he believed that he would break Roy if he held him a little tighter.

Roy sighed and ran his hand through his hair as if trying to banish his thoughts along with the stray hairs that had gotten into his eyes. He was confused, and sitting alone in his office for the past week looking over the photos of the brothers he had found wasn't helping. He was revolted at what the boys were doing, yet he couldn't bring himself to hate them, they obviously didn't want to do these things deep down.

He began to look at the photos again; he had separated them into three piles. One pile had pictures of them both together, one had just Al, and the last had only Ed. He picked up one from the 'Ed' pile and began to examine it. It was like the one he had found himself, there was Ed facing the camera holding out a ring. At first Roy had thought that maybe the first picture he had found was of Ed proposing to someone, it was a diamond ring he was holding out after all, but after finding several pictures of the boy holding out different rings he was starting to believe that wasn't the case.

It looked almost like when a fisherman gets his photo taken after catching a prize fish. Only in this case it was rings. There were five pictures like that in total. The rings were different in each; there was a diamond, garnet, aquamarine, opal, and moonstone. He found a book on one of his bookshelves in his room about gems, but it didn't say much, just some of the old folklore regarding the stones. Roy didn't really believe in that sort of thing, but he was starting to wonder whether Ed did.

He had spent a lot of time this week looking at the bookshelves, and he found that he couldn't read most of them. The majority of books were written in some foreign language that made absolutely no sense to him, they didn't even have any pictures to help Roy get at least some sense of understanding as to what they were about. It really frustrated him, he was pretty sure that they weren't about alchemy like all the other books were, if they were they would have at least had transmutation circles in them.

There were however some books that he could read that weren't about alchemy, but that didn't mean he could understand them. They were the books that the brothers had taken out; obviously they hadn't wanted him to see them. It was ironic, had they not pulled them out Roy never would have found them.

Roy reached over and pulled the book that he had the most luck with off the top of the pile. It was titled: _The Martelian Scriptures_. It was obviously a bible of some sort, but Roy had never heard of any religion like this one. It had many of the more common aspects of religion; it had a main deity, in this case a goddess named Martel, and angels who served the goddess. But what Roy found most odd about it was that the "goddess" didn't really do anything. In fact it talked about how she was asleep at the center of the world while the angels strove to awaken her by means of the "Journey of Regeneration".

Apparently the "Journey of Regeneration" was carried out by the "Chosen of Regeneration". And after the journey's completion the world was supposed to be saved. Roy had never heard of a "Chosen" before, but maybe it was just a secret, like the fact that angels existed. He wasn't entirely convinced that the boys were really angels, but he couldn't deny that there was something strange about them. He wanted to know the truth, but he didn't want to have to talk to those…boys about it. Maybe he could find this "Chosen". They were supposed to be the descendants of angels, maybe they knew the truth.

He was starting to wonder just what exactly angels were. The book talked about how great angels were, how kind and loving they were, how they protected and took care of mankind. But all the illustrations in the book only put doubts about their true feelings towards mankind into his head. The pictures all showed angels looking down on mankind, and the expressions on their faces seemed to be ones of indifference, as if they truly didn't care what happened to humans. That bothered Roy, why would people worship beings that don't care about them?

All of it left Roy with an unsettled feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Just as Roy suppressed a shiver the door to his room swung open, and standing on the threshold were two small blond boys. Edward and Alphonse. The last two people on the planet that he had wanted to see.

"There you are! We've been wondering what happened to you, you idiot! Do you realize that we had to practically beat off that stupid friend of yours to come and find you?" yelled Ed, pointing accusingly at him.

"You-you hurt Hughes?" balked Roy.

"What?! Of course not! We would never intentionally hurt an innocent, no matter how annoying they may be. What do you think we are? Monsters?"

"Well…" mumbled Roy, trying his best to avoid the questioning stares of the two. He heard Ed let out a sigh and then walk over to him, crap; he didn't want the kid to see him like this. He tried to edge away from the blond, but didn't get very far before the kid reached out and grabbed his arm. Well, it looked like he was going for his arm, but really all he did was pull the book out of his grasp.

"Reading this crap huh? Sorry to disappoint you, but it doesn't apply to this planet. There is no 'Goddess' or 'Chosen' who will save this world." stated Ed as he tossed the book aside.

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"I mean, Amestris has no chance of Regeneration. Simple as that. We angels aren't as in control of this planet, we've been leaving that to you humans, but there are some things that I wish we would get our hands out of, I mean we have our own planet to deal with for crying out loud!" snorted Ed. He then walked over to Roy's bed and sat down on the edge of it; Al followed him after gently closing the door and sat down on the floor so he was leaning against the dresser facing both Ed and Roy.

Roy turned around on the floor so he could get a good look at the two. So far they weren't being hostile toward him, and for that Roy was grateful. After being so close to Ed a week ago he realized that the boy was a lot stronger than he let on, and Al was probably the same way. Even though they were half his size he believed that they could easily kick his ass if they wanted to.

"Your own planet? Are you aliens? I thought you were angels…"

"We are angels, but you have to understand that angels don't originate on this planet. We come from a place called Derris-Kharlan. Or as the less knowledgeable call it: 'Heaven'." said Al with a somber smile.

"It's a wonderful place! Very beautiful. Perfect in everyway. But it's nice to get away, there is so much that we get to see here that is missing up there. Like daily life! That's something unique that we don't see much, if any, of in Derris-Kharlan." Said Ed, unlike Al he had a large genuine smile on his face.

"No daily life? What do you mean?"

"Well… you know that angels don't eat or sleep, right? Well, all angels really do is work. There is no 'night' or 'day'; we just keep working regardless of the time. We don't get 'tired' and we don't get 'bored'."

"Wow, and I thought my job was tough."

"Yeah, we have it a lot tougher than you, so quit moping! And for the love of the Goddess, get cleaned up and shave!!" shouted Ed, fingers twitching. He sounded harsh but his face said otherwise.

"Don't like the stubble?"

"All angels are clean freaks, it we see something out of place or dirty it takes all of our willpower to remain calm and not try to fix it. Even though we have spent a few years here it is still tough to deal with all of these 'human' things." muttered Al.

"Fifty years isn't 'a few years'. That's a long time!"

"….No it's not. We have spent a lot longer on Derris-Kharlan, more than twice as long. You have to understand, angels don't 'die' of 'natural' causes. If left to our own devices we would live forever."

"If you call that living." muttered Al.

"So…you are immortal?" asked Roy in amazement, he had gotten up to go shave, but with the way the conversation was going it didn't look like he'd be 'cleaning up' anytime soon.

"Kind of…we're more what you would call 'Lifeless Beings'. Something without life won't 'die'."

"Lifeless Beings?"

"That's what we call ourselves most of the time, other than 'The Cruxis'. But we don't really use those terms on a daily basis." said Ed nonchalantly.

"But how can you be 'Lifeless'? That doesn't make sense, you certainly don't act lifeless."

"We're good actors." stated Ed and Al together after sharing a quick look. "Now hurry up and get ready, we have something to show you!" After they said that both of them shoved Roy into the bathroom and closed the door. After a minute it was reopened as Roy was getting ready to shower and one of his uniforms was shoved in. He quickly took a shower, shaved, got dressed and brushed his teeth before going back out to the boys.

"Finally!" said Ed, "Now come on!" He grabbed Roy's right arm and Al grabbed his left and together they began to drag Roy to the cafeteria. Roy started to panic, were they going to force him to eat his fellow humans? He wouldn't let them. Roy was trying his hardest not to be pulled down the hall, but it wasn't working. These kids were STRONG!

The doors to the cafeteria came into view. He started to desperately think of ways to escape, that was it! He could gnaw his arms off! Just as he started on his right arm he realized that the one holding that arm had loosened his hold. He wasn't being dragged anymore; he was already in the cafeteria!

He was about to run when he noticed that the rest of the school was seated in the cafeteria and they were all staring at him. He hated being the direct center of attention, he liked getting recognition, but being stared at like this was making him _really_ uncomfortable. He felt his face turning bright red but was spared further embarrassment when Alphonse, who he hadn't noticed had left, returned with a tray of food.

It wasn't Razlish. It was steak and mashed potatoes. Roy was stunned. _Real food!_

He never saw anything so wonderful. His stomach growled when he smelled the wonderful aroma that wafted up from it. Al handed him the tray and the boys began to escort him to his usual table, a little less forcefully this time. He sat down and was just about to dig in when a horrifying thought crossed his mind, what if the meat wasn't beef like he thought? What if it was human steaks like they had talked about before?

"Don't worry, it's beef. Yeesh, you're so paranoid. The experiment was a success, but it's unnecessary to continue it. We got the results, now it's just a matter of time before it's put into practice." said Ed, both he and his brother had sat down across from Roy. They had their arms folded on the table, and had small knowing smiles plastered on their faces.

Roy had begun to devour the food in front of him as soon as Ed said it was beef. And it tasted as wonderful as it smelled. He was halfway through the steak by the time Ed had finished speaking.

"Is it good?" asked Al, "We couldn't tell, we just followed the recipe and hoped that it turned out ok. Now that we're not going to make Razlish anymore we need to get some people into the kitchen who can actually tell the difference between what tastes 'good' and what tastes 'bad'. In all respects, we angels who can't eat or taste shouldn't be in a kitchen. We have no place there."

"Yeah, so we're going to put up some 'cooks wanted' signs and hope that we get some people. Lieutenant Colonel Hughes here has volunteered his wife to help us, but I'm not sure if he should have any say over what his wife does…" said Ed, giving Maes, who had just sat down next to Roy, a skeptical look.

"She says it's fine! In fact she wants to help out, she feels she doesn't do enough contributing to the school." said Hughes with a grin. He leaned over to Roy who had just finished eating and whispered, "So these guys are really angels? That's what they told me they told you, but before I could ask anymore questions they rushed off to 'check on' you."

"Eh-hem!" said Ed clearing his throat, "We angels have _very_ acute hearing, if you're going to have a conversation and don't want us to hear it you would have better luck heading five miles off school grounds." Ed whispered the rest to them from across the table.

"Five miles? We don't have time to go that far! If you're going to listen you might as well help us to understand what's going on here." said Maes looking at the boys.

"Listen, we angels hate ignorance. But more than we hate ignorance is _acknowledging_ ignorance. Get it? We aren't going to tell you everything, if we admit that you are ignorant then we admit that you are useless, and we have no need for useless people. Use your own heads for once!" growled Ed, "That's how we learned all this stuff ourselves; it's no fair if we tell you guys!"

"But that's no fun!" muttered Hughes sounding disappointed, "Well, I had a feeling you weren't going to help us, that's why I sent one of those pictures back to Central for analysis."

"YOU DID WHAT?!" shouted both Ed and Al as they stood up and slammed their small fists into the table, successfully causing that side to fall off.

"When did you do that?" asked Ed taking in a shuddering breath to try to calm down.

"About a week ago, why? Is that bad?" asked Hughes, both he and Roy had shakily gotten to their feet, unsure if the boys would take out their anger on them.

"That's very bad. The only way someone can enter the school grounds without either Al's or my permission is by having something that belongs to us. The only reason you people could get in was by having my silver pocket watch. I know you have it Mustang, I've seen you with it, it's the one that doesn't open. If the leader has something that belongs to me then all their subordinates can come in. If the military has that photo then I'm willing to bet that they're going to send in some troops to take to school by force."

"But don't they already have control over the school?" asked Roy hesitantly.

"Yes, but it's taking too long, they probably wanted you to destroy the barrier so they could come in and force me back into service. Since you haven't taken me back to Central they are probably questioning your loyalty." muttered Ed. He was biting his right thumb nail in thought, when suddenly his head snapped up. "You hear that Al?"

"Yeah. They're here. Are we going to fight?" whispered Alphonse as he looked at his brother with his big grey eyes.

"We probably have no choice." said Ed as he began walking to the door that led outside from the cafeteria. Al was quick to follow and after a second Roy and Hughes dashed after them.

They walked around the school in the darkness that was barely illuminated by the pale streetlights until they made it to the front where Ed, Al, and what looked like over a hundred soldiers in blue uniforms were waiting. It was brighter here since there were more lights positioned closer together so the group of people could easily be identified. At the head of the group of soldiers was someone with long green hair that looked like a palm tree. Roy couldn't tell the person's gender, it looked like a guy but it appeared to be wearing a black skirt.

"Envy. Of all the sins they sent you? I thought that at least Wrath would be here. You should know you can't win against the two of us." sneered Ed to the green haired figure. He was no longer in his child body; he was the teen that Roy had seen in the pictures again. Roy looked over and saw that Al had changed to his older form too; he was standing in a position that said he was ready to fight, unlike Ed who was just standing there with his left hand on his hip.

"Sure are confident aren't you, shorty? You will have your work cut out for you this time; I'm not going to go easy on you again." Sneered 'Envy' back. "You there! You're Colonel Mustang right? You and your men are to seize those two traitors!" He pointed from Roy to Ed and Al when he said that. "Everyone else: get them! Aim to kill! Those who go against the State deserve no mercy, not even if they appear to be children!"

At his order the lines of soldiers rushed in to attack the brothers. There was no way the two could survive this attack. Roy didn't know what to do, he didn't really want to help this 'Envy' person, but they obviously had a lot of authority from the military, and he couldn't very well disregard orders…

Ed was still standing in that same spot, just a few feet from Roy. Al had rushed in though and was attacking anyone who got close with powerful punches and kicks. Sometimes Roy could see him jump in the air shouting things like 'Swallow Dance' or 'Eagle Rage' and then he would attack the people on the ground with more ferocity than before.

Ed clapped his hands together and suddenly a blade appeared from beneath his right sleeve. He then changed his position, he was still standing in the same spot, but now he had his hands in front of him and it looked like he was motioning for someone to continue speaking. Roy couldn't see his eyes but he got the impression they were closed in concentration. Suddenly a purple light surrounded the boy; at first glance it looked like a transmutation circle, but upon closer inspection he realized it was two rings of purple light with what appeared to be the same kind of text that was in the books on Roy's shelves. The light was shining brightly onto Ed, giving him a sinister look.

"_Ready? __**Thunder Blade**!_" shouted Ed holding his left hand out pointing toward the group of soldiers. Suddenly a large sword made of lightning fell from the sky and smashed into the group of soldiers. Roy could smell burning flesh, only it wasn't the kind he was used to. The soldiers were burning from the inside out thanks to whatever Ed did. And it wasn't a few of them, more than ten were on the ground dead and several others were rolling on the ground howling in pain.

These kids were serious, they were aiming to kill.

Roy felt a hand on his shoulder; he peeked behind him and noticed all of the school's military personnel were standing behind him. Hughes was the one standing with his hand on Roy's shoulder; Roy hadn't realized how tense he had become. He had his fingers ready to snap, but he still didn't know which side he was on.

Suddenly Ed rushed over and made that decision for him.

"_**Beast**!_" shouted Ed, slamming his right shoulder into Roy's chest, successfully knocking the wind out of him. What looked like a huge rainbow colored lion's head had manifested from Ed's side and it knocked over the rest of his troops. It **hurt**. Roy struggled to breath and he could tell the others were having just as much trouble, the lion head looked like it had just as much force as Ed's shoulder. Ed didn't stay to finish the job; he quickly rushed into the crowd of people, slashing soldiers with the blade on his right arm as he ran through.

Roy stood up on shaky legs, and began scanning the crowd for signs of the blond boys. He saw Al, still beating the crap out of the dwindling number of soldiers. Roy caught sight of something sparkling in the air a few feet above the battlefield. It was Ed, and protruding out of his back was a pair of sparkling, shinning, golden wings.

They were gold like his eyes, and seemed to be two wings made of multiple pairs of smaller wings. It looked like he had four on each side, they all moved together as a larger set of wings. They flapped lazily, it didn't look like they would have enough strength to keep the kid in the air for long, but he stayed in the same position.

There was the purple light under his feet again, only this time it was there for a _much_ shorter time before Ed held out his left hand and pointed at the soldiers beneath him.

"_**Lightning**!_" He shouted, a small lightning bolt falling from the sky and zapping a few unfortunate soldiers. He then descended back into the crowd and was hacking and slashing anyone who crossed his path.

Roy caught a glimpse of Al as the wall of soldiers surrounding him had collapsed. He had wings that were similar to Ed's protruding from his back too. Only they were a silvery color whereas Ed's were gold. They shone brightly in the darkness, but Al didn't appear to be using them for much, it was as if they were just there and he didn't even realize it.

The gears had begun turning quickly in Roy's head. He wasn't going to let that brat Ed decide which side he was on, he could make his own choices. With a sharp snap of his fingers he caused sparks to come from the white gloves he was wearing, using his flame alchemy he caused that spark to grow into a huge explosion that caught several of the enemy soldiers that had began to surround Al in it.

"Protect the Fullmetal Alchemist!" shouted Roy loudly, both to his troops behind him and to Ed who was currently surrounded by the enemy. "Don't let the blond teenagers get captured!"

At his order his subordinates rushed forward, guns at the ready. He rushed in too, managing to take down a few soldiers before he found Ed and killed the man who was attempting to knife him in the back.

Ed turned to him with a frown, but he nodded at Roy and then continued his onslaught. There seemed to be no end to these soldiers, he hadn't even seen that 'Envy' person fighting either. He quickly began to scan the fray when he noticed who Ed was fighting with.

Ed was punching, kicking, and blocking attacks from none other than Roy Mustang. Roy was shocked; he was right here after all, not fighting with the person he had decided to protect! How was this possible?

Because he had become so distracted watching Ed beat the crap out of him, Roy failed to notice a gun pointed at him just a few yards away. But he certainly noticed when a sharp pain ran through his chest and warm liquid began to coat his jacket.

He fell to the ground with a thud and noticed in a very distant kind of way that the majority of his soldiers had fallen during the fight. Hawkeye, Havoc, Breda, Fuery, even Hughes, those were just some of the people he could see close to him, who knows who else had fallen. He heard a small scream from beside him and he lifted his head to see who it was. Funny, he didn't remember his head being so heavy before…

"Brother! No… I'm sorry…" came the hoarse voice from beside him, it was Al. He had several bullet and knife wounds on him; it looked like he had reached his limit. He fell a few feet away from Roy, blood pouring over the stone walkway that led to the school that the boy's had called home. Strange, it hadn't even crossed Roy's mind that angels could bleed, yet here was one, wings and all, with his lifeblood draining away, just as Roy's was doing.

"ALPHONSE!!" screamed Ed, Roy turned his head and saw the older brother with a look of horror across his face. 'And they said they couldn't feel.' thought Roy tiredly. Suddenly Ed had leapt back into the air, instead of making his usual concentrating motion he was now moving his right hand from his forehead to his heart and then from his left shoulder to his right continuously. A bright white spotlight formed beneath his feet, and feathers made of similar light began floating up from it. It kind of reminded Roy of when the boys had changed their age in front of him.

"Stop him! Hurry, shoot him! **SHOOT HIM**!" shouted the other Roy, motioning to the surrounding soldiers. A number of shots were fired, but Ed didn't even seem to notice them.

"_Thy power floweth purely, ever unwavering_" began Ed in a strangely hollow voice, as if praying, "_Accept my soul into thine embrace. __**Sacrifice**!_"

A large multicolored circle formed beneath Ed who now had his arms outstretched to his sides as if he was offering himself. Blue light surrounded him and suddenly a white light flowed from Ed into not only Al, but Roy and all his fallen soldiers as well. It was warm, and comforting, the pain had vanished and Roy was feeling a lot better, not like he was about to die. He slowly got to his feet and noticed that the others had risen as well. He was confused and could see that the others were too.

He looked around and saw that Al had left his side; he had rushed over to where Ed was standing, still airborne, with his left hand outstretched. Suddenly more light erupted from Ed's body, only this time it looked sharper and it hit the other soldiers. Roy could tell this light wasn't the same as the one that had hit him, in fact as the light touched the enemy soldiers several screams of pain rose up. Several soldiers seemed to disintegrate as the light touched them, leaving behind no body, or even blood, to signify that they were even there.

Ed landed softly on the ground in front of his brother; Roy rushed over as he descended. Something was wrong. Ed was so pale. Just as his feet touched the ground he crumpled.

"I'm sorry Al. I failed…" gasped Ed as he hit the ground hard despite his brother's attempts to catch him. It hit Roy like a tone of bricks. Equivalent Exchange. Whatever the boy had done had saved their lives, but it looked like it cost his own. Al let out a scream of sorrow and rage, but when Roy looked there were no tears in his eyes, only hatred. He stood facing the enemy soldiers, right leg in front of his left. He began making the same motion Ed had done earlier, right hand moving from head to heart, and then from left to right, forming a cross.

"_Oh Holy One, cast thy purifying light upon these corrupt souls! Light of Judgment, __**JUDGMENT**!!_" screamed Al, the same white spotlight forming beneath his feet and pinkish white feathers flowed up from it, just like it had done with his brother. Only Al held out his right arm after the circle disappeared and pointed at the remainder of the soldiers, all of whom were badly injured.

Suddenly black clouds formed in the night sky, but instead of thunder and lightening coming from them large columns of white light fell. They smashed into the ground and the helpless soldiers that remained. Wherever they fell a strange circle would form, the same as the one that had been under Al's feet. The columns of light would only remain for about a second, then they would be gone, and so would anyone unfortunate enough to be caught in it.

Roy looked up from watching the countless soldiers being slaughtered as a raindrop hit his cheek. At least he thought it was rain, when he rubbed it off and looked at his hand he had used he realized what it was. Blood. Blood was falling from the sky like rain; it was just as that book had described the 'end of days'. This was a nightmare. There was no way this stuff could really be happening. Yet as more drops hit him he realized that this couldn't be a dream, the pain earlier had been way too real for that.

The light had stopped falling from the sky, no soldiers were left. The blood continued falling from the sky however, and Roy wondered vaguely what the school would look like in the morning. He saw movement at the school gate, one person was left, it was that guy, 'Envy'. He was fleeing the scene as fast as his legs would take him; Roy looked over to Al and saw that the boy didn't seem to care. He had returned to his brother's side.

"Brother… How could you? You idiot!" sniffled Al, he turned Ed over so he was lying on his back, golden wings outstretched on the cold ground. Roy's eyes jumped to Al's back to looking at his silver wings, the feathers were spread out and they looked chaotic. They weren't like that before.

The rest of the school's military slowly approached, unsure of just who these kids were that they almost died for. Roy walked over and put his hand on Al's shoulder. The boy didn't even notice. So much for getting his attention. Roy walked over to Ed's other side and began to lift him up. He was fairly heavy despite his small size. Al quickly stood up and began to help get Ed in a better position for carrying, mostly by moving the boy's golden wings out of Roy's way.

"Be careful of his wings, the feathers are really sharp. They can easily cut through steel, so make sure you don't touch them." warned Al. He sounded exhausted.

"Alright, I will. Is there anywhere you want me to take him?"

"The medical wing, please." said Al, pointing the way. "He'll be alright if we can get him there…"

No one had the heart to tell him that his brother was already dead.


	5. Chapter 5

**Another chapter for the weekend. Hope you like, or did you guys like that ending? Haha, I got many reviews saying "no" so hopefully you like this more. Thanks for all the reviews again, I love reading them, if I don't get any then I won't write anymore, so if you like this you gotta tell me. Suggestions and comments are appreciated; so is anything nasty you may have to say about this story, but if you do write something nasty the other people may have to wait awhile before I post anymore, as I'll be drowning my sorrows in Symphonia…**

**Have fun!**

**Tales of Amestris**

**Chapter Five**

The walk to the medical wing took a lot longer than normal in Mustang's opinion. Maybe it was because he was carrying a very heavy teenager there, or maybe it was because he was trying to avoid getting skewered by the blade coming off said boy's right arm, or maybe it was the fact that the way he was holding the kid made it incredibly difficult not to touch his beautiful golden wings, which were dangerously sharp! He knew that he had been cut by those sharp feathers; he didn't actually feel any pain when they cut him, but his arms were starting to get sticky and he was sure that if he looked behind him there would be a red trail showing where he had been.

No one seemed to notice however. If they did they hadn't said anything about it.

As the got halfway through the student's living area a woman approached them. It was Gracia, Maes Hughes' wife. She was one of the people who helped look after the students at the school.

"Colonel Mustang, we have a problem. Two students are missing, we can't find them anywhere." She said, holding her hands to her chest in worry.

"I assume you're talking about Ed and Al. Don't worry, we have them here." He said, motioning to the boy in his arms and the other teen standing just in front of him. The teen looked upset that they were being held up; he was facing Garcia with a scowl on his face that didn't seem to suit him.

"What? Well… they look like them, but Ed and Al were just little kids! These two can't possible be them!" she said, eyes darting back and forth between the two.

"We are them, whether you choose to believe us or not, now please get out of the way, my brother is injured and needs treatment as soon as possible!" growled Al. After he said that he quickly turned on heel and began walking down the hall with greater determination. Roy gave Gracia an apologetic glance, and then hurried to catch up with Alphonse.

Roy was surprised that the rest of his soldiers continued to follow him to the medical wing; he thought that they would eventually go to their dorms or something. But no, they were right behind him, whispering furiously amongst themselves. Roy caught things like, "are they really Ed and Al?" and "are they really angels? They have wings, they must be angels right?"

He could tell that Hughes was trying to answer their questions, but he could also tell that his friend was trying to withhold information; since he wasn't sure what the boys wanted the others to know. The others seemed to recognize that Hughes knew something, so they were trying desperately to get the truth out of him, his wife having more success then most.

They entered the small hospital like room; Al motioned for Roy to put Edward on the closest bed. He did so, with a great sigh of relief. That kid was **heavy**! He then proceeded to check his arms.

They were ripped to shreds. Well his jacket was anyway. His arms had narrow cuts all along them, like he had gotten into a fight with a cat. These were much deeper than cat scratches though. When the doctor, in this case Falman since they hadn't been given a real doctor, saw the state his arms were in he rushed Roy over to the bed beside Ed's. Obviously he had realized that there was nothing he could do for the boy.

Have a tube of ointment and a role of gauze later, Roy's arms looked like those of a mummy. He had taken off both his military jacket and his white button shirt underneath. He had bandages up to his armpits. He was just glad that Falman had stopped when he did, he didn't want to end up like some of the people did when Fuery was in charge of the medical wing.

Roy looked over to Ed; he was still lying there, unmoving, as pale as death. Al was examining the shelves, poor boy; he didn't seem to realize that they couldn't help his brother. Roy got up and was about to put a hand on his shoulder to try to comfort him when the boy pushed something on the shelf he was staring at.

The shelf silently slid back into the wall and what looked like a medical cabinet was exposed. At least Roy guessed it was a medical cabinet, some of the things on it looked like medicine, others…not so much. There were several bottles of pills, gourds, vials, many different colored and shaped bottles, round squishy things of varying colors, and several red herbs. Al moved quickly and grabbed one of the crystal-clear glass vials.

The vial was as large as his hand, its shape reminded Roy of a diamond, and it had this clear blue liquid inside it. It was long and narrow, and obviously well crafted. He had absolutely no idea what was inside of it however.

Al walked over to where Ed was lying, mysterious vial in hand. He had walked past Roy and most of the other soldiers who had gathered around Ed without saying a word. He walked over to Ed's head and forced open his mouth. Well, he gently opened it; it appeared the rigor mortis hadn't set in yet. After getting the teen's mouth open Al took the top off the vial and slowly emptied its contents into Ed's mouth.

Roy was wondering what the heck the kid was doing. Ed was dead. DEAD. Dead people don't come back to life, even if you do pour some odd liquid down their throat. Needless to say, he wasn't expecting anything to happen.

But something did happen.

Ed's eyes twitched open, brows furrowed in concentration. And he coughed.

"Thanks Al." he said, turning to his brother.

Everyone jumped back, including Mustang.

Well, not everyone, Al didn't jump back. No, he took a step forward and punched Ed in the face.

"You jerk! How could you! We swore we would never use that spell! Idiot!!" shouted Al, and unlike Roy had thought, he had no traces of tears in his grey eyes. His wings had gotten wild again, the four wings on each side twisting around each other, feathers flaring.

"Uh… Sorry about that…but it was the only way! Besides, I knew you would use a Life Bottle on me, so no harm done!" said Ed, first nervously, then sounding more cheerful then nervous. "And besides, this way it was just one. If I had left all of you I would have probably needed over twenty Life Bottles, which we don't have!"

Roy could tell that Al knew Ed was right, but he certainly wasn't happy about it. He was giving his brother a death glare, which looked kind of pathetic when compared to the one Ed could do, and then slowly nodded his head.

"I understand, you just really worried me. What would I say to the Seraphim if they found out I let you die? And at the hands of those weaklings nonetheless!" said Al, kneeling beside his brother's bed.

"If they found out they would give me the hard time, not you. And don't worry about it, it was a fluke. An accident, we weren't being serious, that's the only reason we had so many casualties. It's because of this school, if we had kept traveling and fighting this never would have happened."

"Were we wrong in making this school?" asked Al timidly.

"No, it was good we did this. If not for us those damn Homunculi would have had their way with this country long ago." said Ed, smiling and running a hand through his brother's hair. "Now let's get the heck outta here, you know how much I hate hospitals!"

"Alright brother, but I think some people would like an explanation, and since you were the one who caused this mess, you might as well do something to fix it."

"WHAT?! How did I cause this mess? If anything it's their fault! Butting into our affairs, even after I made it clear that they weren't on our side!" said Ed indignantly.

Ed swung his legs off the bed and stood up, flaring his wings out as he did so. He glanced over all the faces of the people in the room. He let out a heavy sigh.

"Fine, but first I'm gonna get something to eat, I'm _starving_!" he said with a feral grin. Al looked startled at his remark. Roy was a bit startled too, the boys had been forcing the idea that they couldn't eat down his throat, and now Ed was hungry?

"Brother, how is that possible? Are you sure you aren't mistaken?"

"I don't know Al; all I know is that for the first time in, what is it now? Two thousand years? I'm hungry!" He said this as he marched down the hallway, wait, no he wasn't marching, wasn't even walking for that matter. He was floating two inches off the ground, making his way towards the cafeteria. Al was copying him, floating a little behind him and to his right.

As the two flew to the cafeteria, and the rest of the group walked, Ed clapped his hands, causing that mysterious blade to disappear. Roy had to ask.

"Where did you get that blade? And where did it go?"

"Huh? Oh, you mean the automail. Yeah, both my right arm and left leg are made of metal. Lost them when I was a kid. I transmute part of my arm into a blade, quite useful actually."

"Automail? You mean prosthetics? But you're just a kid! Why do you have automail? Most adults can't even stand the pain, a child going through that kind of procedure is unheard of." came the calm voice of Pinako Rockbell, the local automail engineer that lived at the school with her granddaughter. She had started following them at some point, when, Roy had no clue.

"I had it done when I was eleven; I needed an arm and leg so I could move freely. I had some important things I needed to do."

"Do all angels have automail?" asked Havoc from behind them.

"No, brother is the only one. Most angels are 'perfect'. Usually they don't allow things like cripples to work their way into their ranks." stated Al calmly, since Ed was too startled by the question to answer.

"You'll have to let me and my granddaughter take a look at it, if it's the work of angels it should be impressive, right?" said Pinako with a smirk as she took a puff of her pipe.

"Yeah, yeah." said Ed as they entered the cafeteria, waving his had as if to shoo her off.

The cafeteria was just like they had left it, messy. There were dishes still left on tables, some still with food on them. And Roy's favorite table, smashed. One side of it completely broken off. What a shame.

"Oh, we sure did a number on that table, didn't we Al?" laughed Ed as he caught sight of what Roy was looking at. "Do you want to fix it, or should I?"

"I'll do it, besides, you'll have your work cut out for you explaining to these people." said Al, also laughing. He approached the table and gently clapped his hands, much like Ed had done earlier to make the blade appear. Only this time he brought his hands down to the ground, right next to the broken table.

With a flash of alchemic energy it was fixed. Good as new, perhaps even better.

Many people were amazed at his work, Roy being one of them. Both of them could do alchemy without the use of a circle. And they did it so easily! It would have taken Roy hours to figure out what that table was made of and then draw a circle to fix it properly, and even then it probably wouldn't look half as good. No wonder these two had made this school, most of its classes were dedicated to teaching alchemy, which these two seemed to be masters of.

Roy looked past the people who were amazed at Al's ability, but were too afraid to come any closer to him. He was looking for Ed, who had disappeared in all the commotion. Roy spotted him coming out from behind the kitchen counter, plate full of steak and potatoes in hand. He walked, not hovered, to the table Al had fixed and sat down on the same side he had been sitting before when Roy was eating.

He began to devour the steak and potatoes with the same enthusiasm as a starving man. Alphonse kept giving him worried glances, but sat down next to him none the less. Roy sat down across from them, with Hughes at his side. The rest of his subordinates gathered around the table, just in case anything else significant was said.

Ed got halfway through and was starting to slow down, whether it was because he was full, or he wanted to enjoy it now, or just because he wanted to hold out explaining everything until the bitter end, Roy couldn't be sure. But he was kind of thinking it was the later.

Once Ed was finished he took a big swig of water, and set the glass back on the table with a loud thud. He didn't break it though, which was a relief, this way he couldn't take any longer by 'fixing' the cup. If he had to fix it Roy wouldn't doubt that the teen would take his time and draw the circle at a snails pace, just to delay speaking.

Ed looked at all of them, sighed, and then walked over to the front of the cafeteria, where the counter was. He actually climbed up and sat on the ledge that was over top of the counter.

"Alright, can everybody hear me?" people nodded at this, "Alright, everyone take a seat, this might take awhile, depending on how many idiotic questions you ask me."

Everyone hurried to find a seat, all keeping their eyes on Ed, whose wings seemed to be twitching in an odd fashion. Everyone sat quietly, focused on Ed, ready for him to begin.

"Ok, as you all may have noticed, I'm an angel. So is my brother Alphonse. You may know of us as Ed and Al, are real names are Edward Elric, and Alphonse Elric. You may also know of me as the Fullmetal Alchemist.

Al and I are the founders of this school. We have lived here for a long time, for a human anyway. It has become like a home to us, so when the military took over we couldn't just leave it in your hands. We have the ability to change our bodies, Al has two forms he can take, the child you knew as Al, and the teenager you see standing before you. I can change into three forms, the child you knew as Ed, my Fullmetal Alchemist form, and the Headmaster of this school. Since we prefer these forms the most, these are the ones we will be staying in from now on.

As you saw earlier tonight, we have made enemies with the military. We can understand that your loyalty probably lies with them, so we will not be expecting your help or assistance. We will be leaving soon anyway, your Colonel turned out to be a decent enough guy, so we will leave him in charge.

Now many of you are wondering how the hell I came back to life after being dead. The answer is, well, I'm an angel. I have been 'blessed' by the Goddess and now am incapable of truly dieing. The Life Bottle Al gave me brought me 'back from the dead' but it only works on people who have died very recently. It also doesn't always work on people who don't have an Ex-sphere or Cruxis Crystal. And those are things that only the angels possess.

As some of you may have noticed, my arm and leg are automail. I lost my real limbs when I attempted something that is now widely accepted as 'forbidden'. In fact it is because of our attempt that said practice is now forbidden. Since you probably won't leave me alone 'til I tell you what it was I did, I'll say it. Al and I tried to bring our mother back from the dead. We did it when I was eleven and Al was ten. To put it in…nicer terms, it didn't work.

I lost my left leg and my little brother that night. I managed to bind his soul onto a suit of armor at the cost of my right arm. We spent years traveling together, eventually stumbling across the teachings of Martel and finding a way to heaven. In return for my service they made a new body for my brother. It would have ended like that, me living in heaven and Al living out the rest of his life as a normal human, but he wouldn't have that. He took the trials just as I did and now both of us are angels.

We have lived since before the angels created the world as it is now, that's about two thousand years, just so you know. So I will **not** tolerate anyone calling me a 'kid'. While I won't kill the one who says anything like that, please understand that most angels aren't quite as nice. In fact, if at anytime you see an angel that is not me or Al, **do not approach** them. Even if you do exactly as they say, it is more than likely that they **will** kill you, just because you are 'Inferior Beings'.

On that note, do not expect us to 'prance' around and make everything better. It is our experience that angels make things worse, not better. Any questions?" said Ed, finally finishing. He had ignored anyone who had raised their hand in question; it was amazing how much being in a school had affected them. Completely ignoring several of the hands that shot up Ed continued, "None? Good. Well, good night then!"

With that he marched off, brushing passed the people who tried to stop him as he walked by. He went straight out the doors, not turning around once.

Roy was stunned. Ed had said so much, they had tried to resurrect their mother? Roy was horrified. That was taboo, but the way he had said it made Roy believe that that wasn't the case when the boys had attempted it. Two thousand years? That was a long time. And if these kids had been doing what they were doing tonight for all those years. Well, Roy knew he wouldn't be sane.

He could only guess what those two had been through.

With that thought in his head he began making his way towards his room, the rest of the group dispersing as well. Suddenly he was aware of someone hovering over his shoulder, which was odd, because he thought of himself as fairly tall, and normally the only person who could 'hover over' him when he was standing was Armstrong. And he definitely didn't want to deal with Armstrong at the moment. His body was reminding him how late it was, and how tired he was after all the fighting he did earlier, not to mention his near death experience.

He turned around suddenly, ready to order Armstrong to see him in the morning if he had something urgent to talk to him about, but instead he found a distracted angel bumping into him. It was Al, and he looked worried.

"Alphonse, is there something bothering you?" he asked, picking the boy up off the ground after he had collided with Roy's shoulder.

"Oh, I'm fine Colonel, just worried about my brother." He said, looking at the ground with a sad expression.

"He seems fine to me, better in fact. He acted more human tonight then I've ever seen." said Roy with a smile.

"That's just the problem. He _shouldn't_ be doing those things. It could mean that he's _really_ sick."

"What do you mean?" asked Roy, now genuinely concerned for the elder blond boy.

"There is this disease, it's really rare, but some of the symptoms are having many of the qualities that make one an angel wear off. If it remains untreated the one infected will die."

"But you said it's rare right? Maybe this is just a mistake, and in the morning everything will be back to normal?" said Roy, starting to get really nervous, it sounded like if Ed were to die this way, not even that 'Life Bottle' thing would bring him back. After losing the blond once he definitely didn't want to go through that again. At least not before seeing how the boy felt about him.

"It's rare, but not unheard of. In fact, I'm pretty sure that Ed's wife has it. It's really hard to cure too. But mainly really sad, it gives the person hope of becoming 'normal' again, but after it's cured the angel becomes well, an angel again. I'm not too fond of being an angel, but brother seems to have accepted it. Maybe if I found someone like he did it would make it easier…"

Roy wasn't entirely listening. He heard the part about Ed having a wife and his brain seemed to shut down.

"He…has a…wife?" he managed to choke out. Al gave him a questioning look.

"Yeah, but it just kind of happened. I know he cares for her, but I don't think he loves her, well, not the way she loves him anyway." said Al with a shrug, "She is very kind, she loves him so much that she is willing to let him travel without holding him back. The last time we left I remember her look; she hugged him and wished him good luck, all the while holding back her tears. Brother is very compassionate, if she had said anything that even suggested she wanted him to stay, I know he would."

"Thank you for telling me this. Good night Al." growled Mustang. He was getting upset. The person of his dreams already had someone holding his heart. Roy felt like an idiot. Of _course_ he had a wife! Why wouldn't he?! He lived for two thousand freaking years! How could Roy have expected him not to have found someone?!

He stormed down the hall into his office, slamming the door in the process. He strode past his desk, papers flying as he did so. He ripped open his door, and the world stopped as his obsidian eyes met half-closed, sleepy gold ones staring up at him from his bed.

* * *

**Okay, now I have a favor to ask. I need some suggestions for who the 'pure maiden' that will accompany the two for awhile. It has to be a girl, or woman if you like that term better, and they have to not be married or 'with' anyone. This means that someone like Gracia can't be it. **

**You can put suggestions in your reviews, a little bit of an explanation might help to sway my decision. Anyway, thanks for reading, and this little 'voting' on who would make the best pure maiden is optional, but it will most likely influence who I pick, so please suggest someone!**

**Thanks in advance!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Another chapter, sorry for the delay. Thanks for the reviews…but I didn't really get a straight answer for the maiden… there's still time, it's going to be announced next chapter, I think… Everyone said someone different… so this time between Hawkeye, Winry, and Sheska. Martel and that girl from Rush Valley (can't remember her name…) aren't at the school, so they aren't options…but that doesn't mean they won't meet them later on… (If I can't remember that one girl's name she might not be in it…)**

**Enjoy! **

**(And please review!! More reviews more likely a chapter will be out sooner!)**

**Tales of Amestris**

**Chapter Six**

"What are you doing in my room?" mumbled the sleepy blond teen that was sprawled across Roy's bed. He had been lying on his stomach, wings outstretched under the blankets (at least that's what Roy guessed), and was propped up by his elbows. He had taken off his red coat, and the black jacket that he wore under it, both of them were hanging on the back of the chair that was in the bedroom. His hair was out of its braid, and was falling gracefully over his shoulders and down his back.

Roy almost forgot to breathe.

"Well?" yawned the teen, giving him a weary look.

"Your room? I think you are mistaken." said Roy after clearing his throat so he wouldn't sound all squeaky, "This is my room, remember?" The boy was obviously very tired, and Roy hoped that he wouldn't go.

"What?" said Ed, rubbing his eyes and trying to think clearly, "…oh, right. Damn. Oh well, I'm too tired. I'm gonna stay here tonight. It's too far to go back to my current room, and the bed is too small there anyway… you can sleep here too, I don't care, it is your bed…"

Ed moved over a little bit after saying that, giving Roy a bit more room to get on the bed. He probably didn't need to move over, it was a big bed, but maybe he was just trying to show Roy it was okay to come in. Roy removed his military boots, turned out the lights and turned on the bedside lamp before he got into the bed; he had a couple things he wanted to ask Ed before letting him get to sleep.

He was going to tease Ed about his height when he remembered what Al had said about him having a wife, that made his blood run cold, and any attempts at humor wouldn't come to him now.

"Won't your wife be mad that you're sleeping with me and not with her?" asked Roy, trying his best not to sound too bitter. Ed gave him a startled look at that, then his eyes fell so he was looking at the sheets instead of at Roy.

"Al told you I had a wife?" he asked, his voice was really quiet, Roy almost didn't hear him.

He sounded almost sad, '_maybe he was remembering that she was sick and he wasn't doing anything to help her._' thought Roy bitterly. Roy just gave him a silent nod. Ed let out a great sigh then.

"I, I never told Al the true reason we set up this school. It was during out travels, we were looking for the ingredients that would cure her of her disease. We had been gone for less than a year when I decided to call it quits and set up this school. I told Al it was because we needed to do some more research on it before we continued. I wonder if he noticed that I haven't been researching it at all…"

"So you just gave up on your wife? Not a very good husband, are you?" snorted Roy, he didn't really know what the story of why they founded the school had to do with his sick wife, but he was a little curious why the boy chose to start there.

"No, I suppose not. I should have stayed with her, and not given her such false hope. Ever since we met, she has always been so much more loving and kind than I ever could be. Even though our love was not equal, I completed her, but she was nothing to me…"

Roy wanted to punch him. Is this really the type of person he wanted to be with? One who gave up before completing their goals?

"I never told Al, because he loved her, he thought of her as a mother, like the one that was taken from us too soon… She died. She died because of the disease that I wasn't fast enough in curing. I failed her; I failed her as a husband. She said that I would definitely return with the cure, but I never did. I let her die, expecting I would be just around the corner."

Ed had started to cry now, or at least Roy thought he was crying, but there weren't any tears.

"Maybe this is my punishment. I will die just as she died, from the same disease. Even though I remember her crying for me when she was sick, I can't cry for her! I wish I had never met her, maybe then I wouldn't have ruined her life."

"C-calm down, it's ok. Shhhhh." said Roy, trying to calm the distraught teen, but failing miserably. He then remembered seeing mothers rubbing the backs of their children whenever they were crying, usually it helped a lot.

So Roy gently put his hand on Ed's back and began to rub small circles into it. He felt something very soft on his back; it was much softer than the black tank top the boy was wearing. He began to wonder what it was, so he glanced underneath the blankets at what he was touching. It was Ed's golden, glowing wings. He did have them out.

They were really soft; he wondered why he hadn't noticed before. Then he remembered, he had been so focused on not touching them since they were sharp, but they didn't seem sharp now.

Ed had quieted down, so Roy moved his hand to the tip of Ed's right wing so he could get a better look at these feathers. They glowed with a soft light, and Roy wondered how they did that. He ran his fingers along the middle of a feather, very soft. Then he ran his fingers along the edges of the feathers, and when he drew away his hand he noticed he was bleeding. It was a fine line, but it looked fairly deep, the feathers _were_ sharp!

He then noticed a faint sound coming from the wings, it was odd, a sort of humming sound. He hadn't noticed that before. How odd. It was then he noticed Ed's eyes on him. The golden orbs were as wide as saucers, and were staring at Roy's hand on his feathers as if it belonged to some sort of monster.

Roy quickly withdrew his hand, he hoped he hadn't offended the boy in some way, he knew pretty much nothing about angel culture, so maybe touching someone's wings was wrong.

"Uh, sorry." mumbled Roy, after the boy continued to stare at him in horror, like Roy had three heads. That seemed to snap Ed out of whatever thoughts were going through his head. He jerked upright and then jumped out of the bed. He grabbed his things and bolted for the door before Roy could say anything to get him to stop.

Roy heard both his and his office's doors slam shut.

Edward was gone.

Roy sighed; he wondered if touching the other's wings was such a terrible thing. Roy had liked it, except for when he got cut, and he wondered how it felt for Ed. And what was that strange noise? He noticed that as soon as he stopped touching that beautiful golden wing it had stopped humming. Maybe it was a warning to the owner that someone was touching their wings?

It certainly didn't sound like a bad thing; it actually reminded Roy of the way a cat purrs to show it enjoys something. Maybe Ed liked it when he touched his wings? But the way he looked at Roy made it seem fairly obvious that the boy didn't like it…

He thought he would never get to sleep that night, but his body proved him wrong. After a few moments of lying there he was out like a light.

* * *

The next morning announced itself to Roy with the crash of thunder.

He slowly got out of bed after his first initial shock of being woken up so suddenly. He stretched and wondered vaguely why he was sleeping in his pants.

Then he remembered.

Ed had come in here thinking it was his room. The two had talked about Edward's wife, and Roy had gone too far and touched his wings.

He sighed and began to get dressed. He wondered how Ed was going to treat him now; he had started to hope that after what Ed said about him last night the teen would start to treat him nicer. But after this he had little hope that that would ever happen.

Once he had all his cloths on, he had to be careful not to open the cuts on his arms when he put on his shirt, he walked over to the window that was in his room and pulled open the blinds.

It was raining. That was an understatement, it was pouring outside. Roy hated the rain; he hated storms like this one even more. But he supposed it was good, after whatever Al had done to make it rain blood they needed a good rainstorm to get rid of it.

As he looked out into the dismal weather he noticed that there was some crazy idiot walking around in it. That wasn't really accurate either; it looked more like they were dancing in it. Their arms were held up as if trying to embrace something in the sky, and every time a bolt of lightning lit up the sky they would appear to strain harder to reach that unseen thing.

The figure was wearing all black, and had white gloves on its hands. It was fairly short and had blond hair.

'Wait, is that who I think it is?' thought Roy. He quickly grabbed his black raincoat and made his way to the nearest exit, he had to get that person out of the rain before they caught a cold. There was only one person who fit the description of the maniac dancing in the rain, and that was Edward Elric.

He got out the building and as he made his way towards the person he realized his guess had been accurate. The person he had once believed to be the most intelligent person in the school was dancing in the rain, looking for all the world like he was trying to catch the lightning bolts.

"Fullmetal!" shouted Roy, startled by how easily the title fell from his lips. And here he had been worried about what he was going to say to the teen, he could just use his military title if the boy was going to be mad at him.

The boy in question looked startled, but he turned slowly and faced Roy. The kid had a huge grin on his face, as if being out here in the cold, stormy weather was the best thing in the entire world. He just grinned and waved, and then went back to trying to touch the sky.

Roy wondered if he enjoyed it so much, why he hadn't taken out his wings and flown up to be closer to the storm. Then he noticed the other blond boy located close to the door watching his brother with happy grey eyes.

Deciding he would probably get more out of the younger brother, Roy made his way over to the teen.

"Hello Colonel Mustang. Lovely weather today, hm?" asked the boy, a small smile on his lips. He had turned so he was actually looking at Roy, but Roy knew that every once and a while his gaze would shift over to the dancing lunatic.

"Yes, fantastic." Roy said bitterly, he began to shiver from the cold and hoped that he wouldn't get sick for being out here. The teen just laughed at him, and then turned his gaze toward his brother. Roy noticed this and asked, "What does he think he's doing out there anyway? Does he want to catch a cold?"

"Don't worry, this is completely normal. He is a thunder magus after all; it's just natural for him to want to be close to his element of choice. But I do realize that if he were to get hit with one bolt he would be seriously injured, that's why I told him that he can only be out in it if he has his wings in." laughed the teen, he seemed to not be bothered in the slightest by his brother's antics.

"This is normal?" asked Roy incredulously, he never imagined anyone would want to be outside in this kind of weather.

"Yeah, and if I don't let him hang out in it for awhile, I won't be able to get a straight answer out of him. His brain just seems to shut down and only concentrate on the storm. Plus with all this electricity about he won't feel the need to create his own, so you probably don't have to worry about being shocked every time you open a door."

"Wait-he was responsible for me getting electrocuted every time I opened a door? Or touched something metal?"

"Yeah, he loves to shock people, and you are by far his favorite to tease." laughed Al.

"He did that on PURPOSE?!" shouted Roy, now glaring at the dancing teen. He had always seemed to have bad luck when it came to static electricity, "And here I thought it was just my electric personality."

Al laughed at the bitterness in Roy's voice, he was obviously remembering all the times his elder brother had zapped his commanding officer.

"Fullmetal!! Brat! Get over here!" shouted Roy to the jovial teen in the rain. The teen looked at him in confusion for a moment before smiling and waltzing over to the black haired man and blond haired youth.

"Beautiful weather, eh, Mustang?" asked the boy with a smile. This really startled Roy, he was expecting the teen to growl or scream at him, at least call him a bastard, not behave so… civilly toward him.

"Yes, wonderful. Care to explain why you are out in it without at least a coat?" Roy tried his best to put a smile of his own on his face, but found it really difficult to do so, and he probably messed it up bad. He could tell that he didn't succeed in his attempt at a smile, Ed's just got bigger and he started laughing at the older man.

"You look really funny! And really wet! Hahaha, so much for the great Flame Alchemist! All you are now is a wet match!" he laughed some more at Roy's expense, his younger brother joining in as well.

"You didn't answer my question." growled Roy through clenched teeth. He didn't know why he was getting so worked up; maybe it was because the teen didn't even seem to register what happened last night, even though he made such a big deal about it.

"I'm done here Al, as much as I love being out in a thunder storm this isn't so great if you can't fly up there and get zapped." said Ed with a smile, he had turned to Alphonse and was now ignoring Roy completely. That wasn't really what the man wanted, he wanted the teen to shout at him and tell him what he did wrong, not pretend he didn't exist. "We have lots of work to do before we leave anyway."

"What? You're leaving?!" gasped Roy, grabbing hold of the smaller blond teen by the shoulders and forcing him to face him. The blond looked startled for a moment, then a smirk appeared on his face.

"Yeah, we're leaving. Last night we said so, remember? We also said that you would be left in charge of this facility."

"I didn't think you were being serious!!" shouted Roy, relieved that he didn't stutter or shiver while speaking. The two boys seemed so calm, and uncaring, how the hell did they get like that? Was it just because they were angels? But that shouldn't have left them so…unfeeling!

"We were serious. You're a good person, and we can rest easy knowing that you will be in charge of this school. But we can't stay; we need to find medicine for my brother, and for his wife. If we don't…" Al trailed off there, looking forlornly up at the sky.

"What will happen if you don't find it in time?" asked Roy, staring into the older blonde's downcast eyes.

"I'll die." Stated said teen. "Well, my body will, but I doubt the other Seraphim will let me die. As soon as I get close to death they will remove my Cruxis Crystal and place it into another body so I may continue my mission."

"Seraphim? Cruxis Crystal?? Mission??? I don't have a clue what you're talking about!"

"Let's go inside. I'll tell you what I can, but we really need to go. I don't have much time left." Sighed Edward, he looked so old right now. He gently pulled Roy toward the doors to the cafeteria that were behind Al, and soon they were all inside the warm building again.

Gracia and her daughter were in charge of making breakfast this morning, it looked like Maes had tried to help, but they had shoved him out of the kitchen and now he was staring at the two with a look of longing on his face. Roy was watching his friend with a smirk plastered on his face, even his own wife and kid couldn't stand the man, or maybe he was just not helping when he was with him. Sensing Roy's stare the other man turned and saw him and the two golden angels. He smiled and walked over to them.

"You guys sure went out early. Roy, I thought you hated the rain, what were you doing out in this kind of weather?" asked Hughes. Roy noticed the two brothers went fairly rigid at his approach; maybe the kids didn't like him? But that was impossible, sure the man was annoying, but how could you not like him?

"I do hate the rain, but Ed here loves it. That or he has the strange desire to be hit by lightning."

"Hey! I'm a thunder magus!! Thunder magi always walk around in lightning storms! Just like fire magi are pyromaniacs, and almost always hang around too long in a burning building, and wind magi try to fly by jumping off tall buildings! At least I'm not trying to reach the bottom of the ocean and drowning like almost all water magi do…" muttered the soaked blond that was Edward Elric.

"So all magi are crazy you say?" laughed Hughes, slapping Ed on the back. The teen winced, but his friend pulled back his hand and started waving it around like he just slapped a brick wall. "Ow! Did I hit your automail? That really hurt!"

"Brother? That wasn't your automail, I know it, what did he hit?" asked Al shakily, as if he was dreading the answer.

"The sickness is spreading rapidly. We have to leave; if we delay any longer we might not be able to get all the ingredients…" said Ed sadly.

"I never learned exactly how the disease works, or what it does to the body, just that if it isn't treated the individual will die. Brother, please tell me the truth of the sickness!" cried Alphonse, pleading with his stone-faced brother.

"Sickness? But how would that make you feel like stone?" asked Maes, looking back and forth between the two dejected teens.

"The disease is called Chronic Angelus Crystallus Inofficium. It turns the infected person's entire body into a Cruxis Crystal. First the skin, than the organs, until the person dies." muttered Ed.

"WHAT?!" exclaimed both Roy and Maes, and surprisingly Al as well.

"Brother, you never told me that!! If that happens, then-then the person never truly dies!! Is there no way to cure it after their entire body has been taken over by the crystal?" shouted Al, causing Gracia and her daughter to peer over the kitchen counter to see what was going on.

"No, once it reaches the final stages and the organs are crystallized, there is no way for the treatment to be given. The person's very soul is overrun and they are reduced to a completely lifeless being, unable to move, unable to feel, just as we were meant to be…"

"T-that's terrible!! How can such a disease exist?" exclaimed Roy, shocked to the core that the boy could speak so calmly about such a horrible way of dieing, but it sounded like the kid believe that was the best way to be…

"Brother! Don't believe those things the others say! I don't believe that the angels were created to be completely lifeless beings! Why would anyone willingly become an angel if that were the case?"

"But it's true; the only way to end discrimination is by making everyone the same. That was why the angels were first created, as one of the Four Seraphim I know the truth, and I won't let my little brother be suckered into believing those lies the priests say." growled Ed, it seemed like the two brothers were ignoring everyone else around them, again!

"Alright. I trust you brother, you always seem to know everything. I guess you're not the 'Angel of Truth' for nothing!" said Al with a laugh, he gently nudged his brother's arm and his brother seemed to instantly cheer up.

"Keep that title out of it! I'm always right! But now we need to find someone special to help us out, we need to see the unicorn after all, and we know he won't see us!" laughed Ed, he started to peer around the room, as if looking for someone.

"Yes, we need a 'Pure Maiden' to accompany us. Do you think anyone in this school qualifies?"

"Hey, Mr. Hughes, how would your daughter like to come with us and see a real unicorn?" whispered Ed to Hughes, nudging him with his elbow. His whisper wasn't much of a whisper as it was loud enough for the other three to hear as well. Before Maes got a chance to speak, Al butted in.

"Brother!! We can't take a child to see the unicorn! It would take too long to get her there and we wouldn't be able to protect her very well! And we can't expose her to such…things." shouted Al.

"Alright, someone else…. Hey Mustang, you've never slept with that Lieutenant of yours have you?" asked Ed, now nudging Roy with his elbow. Roy felt his face go beet red, and all he managed to do was shake his head to say 'no' as he fought to breathe again.

"Ok, then let's see if she will come with us, she is good with a gun, so we wouldn't have to worry about her as much." said Al with a big smile. The two then began to walk quickly out of the cafeteria, leaving Roy and Maes to share a look before hurrying after them. That seems like all Roy was doing these days, hurrying to catch up to Ed. He needed to do something to get the teen to realize he was there and to wait for him so they could walk together, none of this 'hurrying to catch up' nonsense. He wouldn't be able to keep up for long if this was the way things were always going to be between the two.

"I'm coming with you on your journey." gasped Roy as they caught up to the teens in the hall. This caused a snort of laughter from both the boys.

"Sorry Mustang, we're looking for a '_Pure Maiden_'." snickered Ed, "You don't count, not even on one of those levels! Unless there's something you're not telling us…"

"I'll come with you along with your 'Maiden'. I can help protect you as we travel! I'm not the Flame Alchemist for nothing!" snarled Roy, insulted that the teen would brush him off so soon.

"You think you're pretty strong, don't you?" asked Ed, stopping to look at Mustang in the eyes, "Well, how about this, if you can hold your own in battle against me for…how about ten seconds, I'll let you come with us."

"Brother!! That's ridiculous!!" exclaimed Al, Roy was glad the teen was taking his side, how strong did Ed think he was? Roy could kick the teen's butt, saying that he would have trouble lasting ten seconds was insulting, to say the least! "Even five seconds is asking too much of him!!" And just like that Roy's hopes of at least one of the teens respecting him vanished in a puff of smoke.

"If he can't last ten seconds he has no right to get us to do anything for him. We can't support a dead weight!!" shouted Ed, pointing his finger accusingly at Roy. Even though Roy felt like a weak idiot with the way these two were talking about him, he couldn't let them tarnish his reputation.

"I'll accept your challenge!! In fact, I'll beat the snot out of you within that time limit!" roared Roy, even though he hated the thought of having to use his alchemy against the teen that held his heart, he had to do this so the kid would at least have a little respect for him.

"Pretty cocky, ain't ya?" sneered Ed, "Alright, let's go. We have a special facility for 'training' fights here. Let's go, and I'll make you regret ever laying eyes on me…"


End file.
